A Black Virginia history teacher is suing one of the students that allegedly committed several racist acts against him.
Joel Mungo, a history teacher at Menchville High School for 21 years, said starting in October 2021, he noticed a banana placed in his classroom doorway. He said the banana was placed in the same spot at least once a month.
Mungo told WAVY, “Someone left a banana at my door. The banana was perfectly placed in the doorway. It began happening in October and then continued once a month after that. The banana was always at the same spot under the teacher’s doorway.”
The incident could be written off as a traditional student prank in any normal situation. However, bananas have been used in correlation to monkeys, an animal Black people have been referenced to look like through racist history.
“It was clearly a deliberate act,” Mungo stated.
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According to WAVY, Mungo reported the problem to Menchville administrators. They identified the 10th-grade student responsible by using surveillance footage. They called the parents and suspended the student for two days.
“I gave the student a chance to come clean. I asked him, ‘Hey did you do this?’ He said, ‘No,’ he played dumb, ‘No idea what you’re talking about.’ So I said, ‘OK, go down to the assistant principal.’ I’m the only Black teacher he has. He has six other teachers. No other teachers were involved,” Mungo said.
“Initially, when the parents were contacted, the parents seemed to be truly embarrassed. Then, when the student was suspended, and the parents were informed, then the parents were irate. It’s 2022. Just to have some type of hate crime is absolutely ridiculous. I was sickened. I was highly upset. So upset, I took the next day off. I didn’t go to work that Friday,” Mungo continued.
Mungo is “fed up” and is in the process of suing the student for the racist act.
“I’m just fed up with the racism around, especially at our academic institutions. Coming from the HBCUs and other colleges, the bomb threats, the nooses, the bananas, and now it’s streaming into public education. It’s time to take a stand and just let people know it will not be tolerated. I know I’m not tolerating it. You have to speak up. You can’t allow it to go on because then it will just continue to go on,” Mungo said.
