A white Texas school teacher has been placed on leave after he told his class that his race was the superior one, the New York Post has reported.
The unidentified teacher at Pflugerville's Bohls Middle School caused outrage from parents and community members when he told the class in a statement, captured by students on video, that "deep down in my heart, I'm ethnocentric, which means I think my race is the superior one," the Austin American-Statesman reported.
The teacher added that "I think everybody thinks that. They're just not honest about it."
In a statement on Monday, the district announced that the teacher was no longer employed by the school district.
Superintendent Douglas Killian said in the statement that the conversation was inappropriate, the New York Post reported.
"This interaction does not align with our core beliefs as a district," Killian said. "The video of the conversation includes statements that we find wholly inappropriate. The teacher has been placed on administrative leave while Human Resources conducts an investigation."
Videos posted to various social media platforms show the teacher talking about race in a classroom full of students, many of whom are Black. It is unclear what led to the controversial conversation, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
When students asked the teacher if he was a racist, he said, "I think everybody's a racist at that level," leading to a shocked reaction from the students.
Parents in the school district said they found the conversation inappropriate and upsetting for their children.
"I think the most disturbing piece is that it was a situation where kids had experienced this real-time," Dr. Shante Lyons, a parent in the district, told KUVE.
Another parent, Brian Hennington, said this kind of conversation should have never taken place in school.
"There are other personal experiences we've had as people of color that we had individually, but to see this in the classroom setting is just not acceptable," Hennington said.
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