A teacher in California was suspended for wearing blackface to dress up as a rapper for Halloween

A teacher in California was suspended after he wore blackface to school in an apparent attempt to come as the rapper Common for Halloween. A student present in one of the teacher's classes filmed him rapping while wearing the outfit and posted it on her Twitter page.

2019-11-05T15:30:23Z
  • A teacher in northern California was suspended for wearing blackface to class in an attempt to come as the rapper Common for Halloween. 
  • A student at Milpita High School recorded the teacher and posted it on her twitter page on Friday. He was named by local media as David Carter, who taught economics.
  • The school said the teacher's actions were "inappropriate, unprofessional and insensitive," and that he had been placed on administrative leave.
  • Common is an American rapper, actor, writer and activist and was the face of a US-wide advertising campaign for Microsoft's artificial intelligence technology last year.
  • Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

A teacher in California was suspended after he wore blackface to school in an apparent attempt to come as the rapper Common for Halloween. 

A student present in one of the teacher's classes filmed him rapping while wearing the outfit and posted it on her Twitter page.

The video can be seen below. 

—karrington (@karrington_kk) November 1, 2019

The teacher wore the costume last Thursday — Halloween — and the student posted the video the following day.

The student's video did not name him, but the San Jose Inside local news website named him as David Carter, an economics teacher. Carter's name also appears on an online staff directory.

According to other tweets from the student "the school just told him to clean up," at the time.

The student said the teacher was trying to imitate a Microsoft commercial from last year which featured Common.

A still from the Microsoft advert featuring the rapper Common. Youtube/Microsoft

The school took further action on Sunday. The president of its Trustee Board, Christ Norwood, said in a statement that Carter had been placed on administrative leave.

He seemed to offer a justification for the costume — he said Carter was trying to "satirically imitate a TV commercial and well-known national social activist of the African American community."

He said the outfit was "inappropriate, unprofessional and insensitive."

Separately, senior officials from the Milpitas Unified School district also condemned the outfit and said they were investigating.

Read the original article on INSIDER. Copyright 2019.

Follow INSIDER on Facebook.

Follow INSIDER on Twitter.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7o8HSoqWeq6Oeu7S1w56pZ5ufony1scCcn56qXayyor7SZpmlmZOgs6KvxGarqGWUp7K0v4yaqmaqkaW9pr6MnKampZ%2Bjeqe70WafmqScpMSmsc1maWlpaWJ%2Bcg%3D%3D

 Share!