Virginia High School Teacher is in the process of filing a lawsuit against student captured on video repeatedly placing bananas at his classroom door

A history teacher at a high school in Newport News, Virginia, is suing his former student for committing a series of racist pranks on him using bananas according to WAVY 10. The teacher says the white teen was captured on video performing the acts that seemed intended to harass the teacher, because of his race. According to the news station, Joel Mungo has been working at the mostly white Menchville High School for 21 years. Then in October 2021, the educator began being harassed by someone in the school. After he found out who was responsible for the racist act, Mungo said he is now considering taking legal action against the person.

For about six months an unknown person at the school would leave a banana outside of Mungo’s classroom.

“Someone left a banana at my door,” Mungo said. “The banana was perfectly placed in the doorway.”

“It was clearly a deliberate act” he said. The banana would be put close to the door’s right-hinge bearing corner, placing it at the entrance’s threshold.

Bananas have historically used as racist symbols directed at people of African descent. The concept likens darker-skinned people to lower primates similar monkeys who traditionally eat bananas.

Last month, he started longer accepting the inference that he was a “monkey,” Mungo decided he would report the racially charged incidents to the school’s administration.

Officials reviewed surveillance video from the school’s hallways found a white 10th-grade boy was the one repeatedly doing the prank.

A still from the video shows the kid, who was a member of Mungo’s class, walking with one of the bananas in his hand.

“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,’” the teacher said.

“So, I said ‘OK, go down to the assistant principal.’ I’m the only Black teacher he has. He has six other teachers,” Mungo added. “No other teachers were involved.”

The boy’s parents were contacted regarding the incident according to Mungo “seemed truly embarrassed,” however, later became “irate” once learning the teen had been suspended.

“It’s 2022,” Mungo said. “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.”

The educator says he is considering taking legal action against the teen. “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,” he told the news station. “It’s time to take a stand and just let people know it will not be tolerated. I know I’m not tolerating it.”

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