An 11th-grade teacher at Westlake High School in Westchester County in New York handed out an assignment on the first day of school that depicts cops as slave owners and members of the KKK.
The New York Post has pictures of the assignment given to students by teacher Christopher Moreno:
The first three frames show slave owners and a member of the KKK with their knees on the backs of black men in shackles. The KKK member also has a noose around the black man’s neck.The last two panels depict a sheriff and a police officer each with their knees on the neck of a black man in handcuffs. The black man is saying, “I can’t breath’’ — what black Minneapolis victim George Floyd gasped as his neck was knelt on by white cop Derek Chauvin, sparking ongoing BLM protests across the country.
Ania Paternostro, a mother of one student, blasted the teacher and school district:
“My daughter showed me the paper. I said, `What is this?! You’ve got to be kidding me!’ ” said Westlake mom Ania Paternostro. “This cartoon compares the police to the KKK. It’s an attack on the police.”The mother said she immediately fired off letters of protest to Mount Pleasant School District Superintendent Kurt Kotes and Westlake Principal Keith Schenker, whose school is in the district.“Enough is enough,” Paternostro told The Post.“This cartoon is disturbing. We have to respect the men in blue who protect us,” added the mom of two, a native of Poland.“We don’t need a teacher brainwashing my kids. I’ll teach my kids about what’s right and what’s wrong.”
The assignment “troubled” her daughter Nicole “because she considered it one-sided and anti-police, too.”
Nicole described it as “disgusting” since the cartoon “compared the police with all the terrible people in history.”
Unfortunately, Nicole has been bullied for alerting the media and the school board.
Mrs. Paternostro sent letters to Mount Pleasant School District Superintendent Kurt Kotes and Westlake principal Keith Schenker:
Kotes and Schenker declined comment — although the superintendent sent a letter to Paternostro and the parents of other kids in the class promising an “investigation’’ into the lesson plan.“I want to address an issue that I have recently been advised is of deep concern to many members of our community,’’ Kotes wrote in his letter.“Specifically, I have been advised that one of our High School teachers may have recently conducted a lesson that many have deemed to be highly controversial in the current climate.“I want to assure the community that the District will be conducting a thorough investigation to determine what exactly occurred in this particular classroom and what, if any, action is to be taken under the circumstances to appropriately address the matter,’’ he said.“Once the investigation has been completed we will follow up with the community to the extent necessary and legally appropriate.”
The cartoon did not sit well with local law enforcement either. Retired Mt. Pleasant police officer Steve Kardian called it “a smack in the face.” He said it’s “a smear of the police.”
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