A school teacher has been suspended after footage showed him telling pupils he thought white people were the 'superior" race.
The clip showed the unidentified teacher talking to a class at a Middle School in Texas, USA.
He was captured saying, “Deep down in my heart, I’m ethnocentric, which means I think my race is the superior one.”
Students were quick to react to the teacher's comments, with one asking “So white is better than all?”, in the video obtained by KVUE.
The teacher goes on to expand on his comments after being questioned by the pupils.
He asked the students to let him finish speaking before adding: “I think everybody thinks that, they’re just not honest about it.”
Shocked students continue to question him, asking if he is openly admitting to being a racist.
But in horrifying commitment to his views, he continues: “I think everybody is a racist at that level."
Students once again ask him for a firm answer to whether he is racist, to which he responds: “I did. I did. If I’m going to be honest with you.”
“No, I’m not going to say it again. I said it enough,” the teacher added.
The teacher, seemingly done with the conversation, can then be heard asking students to put their phones down.
One pupil voices their disgust, saying: "I respected you for a while, but now I don’t have any more respect for you."
The teacher replied: “No, you should have more respect because I’m honest.”
“No, not at all,” another student quickly responded.
Furious parents said they found the conversation inappropriate and upsetting.
One father Brian Hennington told KVUE: "There are other personal experiences we’ve had as people of colour that we had individually, but to see this in the classroom setting is just not acceptable.
The Independent School District Superintendent released a statement following the incident, saying officials were aware of “an inappropriate conversation”.
They said: "This interaction does not align with our core beliefs as a district. 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.
