Hudson Valley Teacher Stirs Controversy Over ‘Roseanne’ Comments
A Hudson Valley teacher will be sitting out the rest of the year after an awkwardly worded Facebook post of his went viral.
Music teacher Aaron Minsky says he was just trying to cleverly comment on the controversies surrounding Roseanne Barr and Samantha Bee after they both made lewd comments earlier this month. Parents and community members, however, didn't find the comments clever or funny.
Roseanne was fired by ABC after posting racist comments about former Obama advisor, Valerie Jarrett. A few days later late night host Samantha Bee was criticized for calling Ivanka Trump a derogatory word.
According to News 12 the post made by the middle school music teacher was titled "What I learned this week," and went on to say "you can call a woman a (c-word) but can't call a black a monkey."
Yikes. Jon Stewart he's not.
The posting may have been intended as some sort of social commentary, but it really is unclear what Minsky is getting at. As if repeating the offensive c-word wasn't awkward enough, Minsky's outdated description of Valerie Jarrett as "a black" makes things even more confounding.
The teacher says he deleted the post after he says his words were being misinterpreted. In it's place he posted an explanation on his Facebook page saying,
The point of my post was to expose and decry how increasingly lower standards of speech have become accepted in the media... In an attempt to show that both were unacceptable I used irony to strongly make the point that it is wrong to use derogatory language about or against anyone... Friends and family who know me have told me that they understood what I was trying to say, namely that slurs of any type should not be applauded or condoned, but I have come to understand how those who don’t know me could have misunderstood the ironic nature of my comment, especially when taken out of context.
Minsky went on to apologize saying, "I am truly sorry for any misunderstandings or hurt feelings anyone may have experienced due to this incident."
The Suffern Central School District, where Minsky is employed also released a statement:
While we are not at liberty to discuss personnel issues, the matter has been and will continue to be addressed. The Suffern Central School District places an extremely high premium on tolerance, diversity and inclusion. This very unacceptable incident will not deter our educators from the important work they do each day for every one of our students.
Minsky is still employed by the Suffern Central School District, but officials say he will not be back in the classroom for the remainder of the school year.
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