Student Told to Sound 'Blacker'

Jordan Shumate, a ninth grader at George C. Marshall High School in Falls Church, Virginia says that his English teacher told him to read in a "blacker manner". The teacher had him reading Langston Hughes' "Ballad of the Landlord" aloud, when she interrupted him. "She told me, 'Blacker, Jordan. Come on, blacker. I thought you were black."

After he refused to continue she read it herself to show him what she meant. Shumate says, "She read the poem like a slave, basically". When he asked whether she thought all black people speak that way, he says she told him to take his seat and that he was reprimanded for speaking out of turn.

The poem was written in 1940 about a black tenant thrown in jail for challenging a landlord.

"It's very, very unprofessional," Shumate continued. "It should not happen. She didn't do it to any other kids. Why did she have to do it to me?"

Jordan brought the issue to his mother's attention after he said the teacher singled him out again during a lesson about stereotypes. Shumate said he was asked to explain why blacks like grape soda and rap music. His mother, Nicole Page, that she is "very sad for her child's loss of innocence" because of the ordeal. Page added that the teacher had also previously asked the student to rap out a poem by black rapper and actor Tupac Shakur.