a high school math teacher in California, AmericaAs reported by US Press Vehicles, it was removed after a video emerged in which she was seen wearing a fake headdress and imitating indigenous people.
The video was published on Wednesday (19). In this the teacher shouts the word “sohkahtoa” as if it were an indigenous cry – “sohkahtoa” is a term to recall the concepts of sine (opposite side divided by hypotenuse), cosine (adjacent side divided by hypotenuse) and tangent (a. The side opposite the angle is bisected by the adjacent side).
The teacher stamps his feet, jumps and dances in a way that is believed to be similar to indigenous rituals. She also mentions “water god” and “stone god”, which would be an attempt to make fun of.
According to the “Los Angeles Times,” the agency responsible for schools in the area said that the teacher’s actions do not represent the values of the district.
A meeting took place to talk about the incident, and many claimed that the teacher’s performance was racist.
The education agency said his behavior was “totally unacceptable and disrespectful to Native Americans”.
The teachers union said that it is disappointed with the teacher.
The director of an Indigenous rights group in Southern California told The Los Angeles Times that people reacted with slight anger because they considered the teacher’s actions disrespectful.
Representatives of indigenous communities told the newspaper that they were tired of being the object of jokes and that they were not fiction.
In California, students entering high school in 2030 will be required to do one semester of ethnic studies before graduating.
Video released by a student of indigenous studies
The video was recorded by a student who is from Native People, and was posted on a social network to the profile of a woman named Akali Brown.
BuzzFeed News caught up with Brown. She is a Native People’s Studies student at the University of California, and received the video of the person who recorded it. She said this type of behavior is unacceptable, and that adults in the indigenous community should have something to say about the math teacher’s dance.
