White mother faces charges for slapping black teen, saying not to call her son a "n*gger"
A white mother, Heather Sebra, of a Northumberland High School student in Virginia is facing a lawsuit after slapping a black child across the face while breaking up a fight, WTVR reports.
Footage of the fight shows two boys, John Thomas and an unnamed white student in a fight. When Sebra, the mother of the white boy in the fight, steps in to break up the fight, she slaps Thomas across the face and says, "You're not going to call my son a nigger!"
Thomas protests, asking when he ever said that word.
Sebra points in his face and says, "I don't believe in that word and you're not going to call my son that!"
Sebra never protests Thomas fighting with her son and only expresses anger at her son being called the racial slur.
According to WTVR, Sebra was charged with assault and a protective order on Wednesday.
"Yes, that's a huge problem, obviously we want to make sure our students are safe," superintendent Dr. Rebecca Gates told WTVR. "We will have all of the information that we need before we make a fair and honest determination about consequences and what we need to avoid this situation again."
Thomas's mother, Nicole Thomas, is enraged not only by the slap but by the fact that Sebra restrained her son by his collar.
"How dare you?" Nicole Thomas said to WTVR. "For this woman to restrain my son by holding him by the shirt and then sticking her finger in his face after slapping him."
She added, "Then, chastising him for something that he repeatedly said he didn't say, how dare you?" Thomas continued. "To abuse, berate, belittle, intimidate and physically attack someone is disgusting. I think it needs to be addressed and think people need to be punished for it and held accountable."
Superintendent Gates did not immediately reply to a request for comment.