A West Virginia newspaper, The Lincoln Journal is coming under fire for publishing a homophobic and racist letter after the Lincoln County Board of Education fired teacher Kelli Burns for being a lesbian.
Said the letter, which was transcribed from a voicemail the paper received:
“We were really glad to hear that School Board is getting rid of them queers. The next thing is we need to get rid of all the niggers, the spics, the kikes and the wops….You know even them Catholics, they are wrong as baby eaters…We need to clear them people out and have good, white, God fearing Christians and everybody else needs to be put to death for their abominations….We’ll keep Lincoln County white and right. Thank you.”
Burns who was fired after three separate hearings from the school board late last week,
alleged that students had been forced to write letters to the school board saying that she had “tried to turn them gay.”
I regret to say that this doesn’t bother me too much. Oh, the content definitely does but not the fact that it was published. It was not the intent of the newspaper, but I do think it does stir conversation and emotions. The good people of W.V. must be very embarrassed and the rest of the population just won’t get it. But this ugliness might nudge some of the fence sitters to the right side. Sometimes progress can be very slow. Bigoted people can change but it does take time. Seeing this in print might speed the progress for the fence sitters.
I am not impressed with the newspaper editor.
As far as the fired teacher is concerned, it is tragic. The school board should be ashamed.
If someone had tried to ‘force’ me to write such a letter, I would have refused. I guess that’s probably just me, though… When I was in school, having met my local MP, I REFUSED point-blank to write a letter thanking him for meeting our class that included the word ‘honorable’. He was sleazy and false, and I said I would not. When the teacher said we all had to, on a form letter, I crossed off the ‘honorable’. I imagine she didn’t send it…
But yes, her being fired is despicable.
The letter is meant sarcastically. Attention needs to be paid not to the letter but to the firing of the teacher.