'That's a hate crime,' says Texas Pastor Kyev Tatum about alleged racial slurs at Paschal High School
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - A video of a Fort Worth ISD student allegedly using racial slurs in the classroom continues to make its rounds in the community.
Since the video was released by someone who recorded the incident in the classroom, the district has launched an investigation. But some community members want more to be done.
About 15 people from the area gathered to discuss the next steps in hopes of change.
People from Fort Worth came together to voice their opinions about the video that shows a Paschal High School student reading from a piece of paper and allegedly saying the N-word at least seven times.
"To call them ni***** and to say kill ni***** in that presentation constitutes hate, and that's a hate crime based on the law… then you have to be held accountable for engaging in that," Ministers of Justice Coalition of Texas, Pastor Kyev Tatum said. "The teacher has to be held accountable for being complicit in that and then also the administration has to be held accountable for pushing it under the carpet."
Pastor Tatum hosted a conversation with the community to talk about what happened and possible next steps.
"We cannot tolerate no more racism in any form, shape or fashion," Candice Matthews said.
Pastor Tatum brought in Matthews from Houston, who has helped push for change in Houston ISD following several different racially motivated incidents.
"Clearly what's happening out here in Fort Worth, the hammer of accountability needs to be here because that's unacceptable," Matthews said. "That should not have happened and so clearly what we are dealing with right now, we're dealing with educational assassins because that's exactly what that teacher was because she was supposed to correct that behavior right then and there."
Pastor Tatum invited several different organizations like: Texas Coalition of Black Democrats and Texas Chair, RainbowPUSH Coalition and the ministers of Texas Coalition, in hopes of taking legal action and seeing some type of change.
"These civil rights cases come up and you have to meet certain measures of demarcation and we believe we meet all of those," Tatum said."
"We ain't ignoring what happened at that school, that teacher needs to be fired, that administration needs to be fired, and that district needs to be held accountable," Matthews said.
The plan is to meet with attorneys to discuss next steps and also make a plan to help students who have trauma from incidents like this in the classroom.
No update from the school district after it said it was investigating the incident and the superintendent recommended that the teacher be removed.
