A 51-year old Akron, Ohio orchestra instructor has been placed on paid administrative leave after posting a racist rant on Facebook about trick-or-treaters from “the ghetto.”
The post, in which he is apparently upset about some kids peeing on his telephone pole, tells them to take their “nigger-ass back where it came from”
Spondike deleted the post and then deleted his entire Facebook account, but the power of screenshots allows his post to live on forever:
Apparently, when confronted on Facebook about the post, Spondike defended himself, saying that he hears…
“[t]hat nigger word more than 25 times a day in a public school, where it is used thousands of times every day by black people.
I wish Firestone High School, and I am sure at other schools would stop openly and unabashedly using the word nigger,” he wrote. Racism is racism and to allow one race to use word and not another IS racist. What I said was absolutely NOT racist by any stretch of the imagination. If you want to go after racists, go after racists. If you want to be a language policeman, I suggest you find yourself in a George Orwell novel. When I try to get the teenagers in my school to stop using the word nigger, I only get laughed at.”
Akron Public School officials had this to say about the situation:
Akron Public Schools has put a veteran music teacher on paid, administrative leave as it now conducts an investigation into postings he made on Facebook. Fifty-one-year-old David Spondike posted comments on his personal Facebook page last evening following a night of trick or treating by children visiting his neighborhood. He has been employed by APS since August of 1998.
“His comments were unprofessional and unbecoming a teacher,” said Superintendent David W. James. “Regardless of whether he was on his own time and own account doing this, he is a teacher; and his actions influence children. This is serious.”
His comments have been removed and his account deleted. Spondike did offer this, after removing the comments and prior to deleting his account, saying he was sorry “to those who are sincerely offended.” He added that his comments on Facebook were directed at the teen who exposed himself in front of young children.
Spondike’s case will come up for review next week, but some parents at the school and civil rights leaders are already calling for his immediate termination.
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