FRESNO, Calif. – Black activists are seeking to remove a white teacher who was hired to teach a “cultural studies” program.

“We’re just saying what the community wants. We didn’t fight for a white male or female teacher to educate our babies,” Rev. Karen Crozier said at a press conference outside Rutherford B. Gaston Middle School in the Fresno Unified School District.

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The Fresno Bee reports:

Crozier and others were dismayed to learn the person hired to teach the school’s three cultural studies classes is white. District officials initially considered hiring a teacher of color, she said, but ultimately hired Peter Beck, a former teacher at Hoover High School.

Crozier called on the school district to hire African-American and Latino educators for African-American and Latino studies, saying the demand was based on “personal” experience.

“We still are at these racial fault lines, and we want someone who will be able to think critically about those racial fault lines and how do we help heal, to restore the problems that have existed,” Crozier said.

School board member Cal Johnson defended the white teacher.

“I do not believe colorism trumps qualifications,” he told the Bee. “I don’t care whether it’s white, whether it’s black, brown or yellow.”

The Bee reports another minister, Paul McCoy, shares Crozier’s concerns.

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“Hiring teachers who look like the students they teach simply helps ensure sensitivity about topics related to race,” the paper reports.

McCoy added that cultural studies classes are good because they help students “understand their own history.”

Apparently only people of a certain race can do that.

Here is Crozier’s press conference:

Welcome to racism in the 21st Century.