Substitute Teacher Writes 'All Lives Matter' On Whiteboard But Flips After Being Challenged By Black Student

This video posted to the Public Freakout subReddit showed an unidentified substitute teacher arguing with a Black student who challenged the "All Lives Matter" she had written on the board and has gone viral on social media.

The poster, The-Brixon, shared an insight into what happened before the video was recorded:

"For context: Actual teacher has a Black Lives Matter sign in their classroom."

"A substitute took down the sign, then wrote 'All Lives Matter' on the whiteboard. At the end the student erased it and the substitute got even more upset."

The-Brizon/Reddit

The video starts with the Black student making a comment on what the teacher wrote on the board.

The student said:

"Oh, 'White lives matter'; nothing has happened to them, nothing bad has happened to them."

The teacher looks really upset by the student's comment.

The teacher responded, raising their voice:

"Nothing bad has happened to a White person? Ever?"

The student stopped the substitute and said:

"We're not talking about that. I'm just saying straight up—were you a slave?"

The-Brizon/Reddit

The teacher then hits back at the student with a completely inaccurate statement posed as a question:

"Who sold who into slavery?"

"Did you know African Americans sold African Americans into slavery?"

"So I'd encourage you to check with your history teacher and get that all straightened out."

"So you can learn history and how it truly unfolded. 'Cause, that is true history."

The-Brixon also commented:

"Note the 'African-Americans sold African-Americans into slavery,' as opposed to just Africans."

To clear here, slavery existed long before America's version of slavery came into being. But it was not African Americans selling other African Americans into slavery. For one, Africans living in Africa prior to being made slaves in America were Africans.

"Forced labor was not uncommon—Africans and Europeans had been trading goods and people across the Mediterranean for centuries—but enslavement had not been based on race."

"The trans-Atlantic slave trade, which began as early as the 15th century, introduced a system of slavery that was commercialized, racialized and inherited."

"Enslaved people were seen not as people at all but as commodities to be bought, sold and exploited."

The slave trade that was based within Africa was the one that included warfare and captured adversaries that could shift power between the slavers and the enslaved with a single battle.

However, the European colonial governments exploited the practice, in fact, internal slavery was considered instrumental in the growth of the European colonial administration's trade of goods and taking of resources on the African continent.

As a matter of fact, the colonial governments effectively turned a blind eye to local chiefs continuing the slave trade into the 1940s and 1950s.

But the trans-Atlantic slave trade was different.

The 'African Americans' on the other hand didn't benefit from enslaved Africans brought by European colonists to the Western countries. The only benefit actually went to the Western colonizers and the European nations participating in the slave trade.

The substitute teacher's false claims feature heavily in rhetoric spread by White supremacists and White nationalists. She tried to use the same whitewashed history to teach Black students a lesson in history.

Her misguided lecture was not well received by the students and by the end of the class, many chose to walk out with one student taking the initiative to erase 'all lives matter' words on board.

Internet responded to the video and many people added their two cents on the whole situation: 

Redditor Ishihado said:

"Does she know she probably just lost her job?"

Redditor annieweep replied:

"She's gonna have a hard time getting her whiteboard out of that class."

A teacher added in about dealing with substitutes:

"I'm a teacher and subs messing with my sh*t pisses me off so much."

"It's not your classroom. Stop trying to impose your random rules onto my students and stop reorganizing or messing with my sh*t."

"There's a 'do not return' list on most sub request forms and this sub definitely guaranteed she'll never be invited back into that teacher's class or any teacher who works with that teacher and agrees with BLM."

And PapaSmurf1502 replied:

"It really makes me think she wanted to be a teacher for the authority but couldn't get the job."

BobsBarker12 commented:

"GET TO THE OFFICE THAT IS MY WHITEBOARD. >:("

"Holy sh*t the fragility."

Then Clean-Soup-1247 replied:

"Being a substitute teacher is like the least power you have in the United States, imagine trying to take advantage of THAT amount of power."

It is still not clear if the substitute teacher faced any consequences for her imposed lesson or not but we hope that she never tries to lecture students on history lesson again.