Teachers and fellow lawmakers criticized Michigan state Sen. Marty Knollenberg (R) after he awkwardly inserted race into a discussion on troubled districts within the state, WXYZ-TV reported. Footage posted by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) shows Knollenberg saying during a Senate committee meeting on Tuesday, “You mentioned these school districts failing, and you mention economically disadvantaged and non-white population are contributors to that. I know we can’t fix that. We can make an African-American white. That’s just, it is what it is.”
Knollenberg was speaking to state school reform officer Natasha Baker, who appeared at the hearing alongside Karen McPhee, an education advisor to Gov. Rick Snyder (R). The senator asked Baker what could be done to prevent such schools from “hurting [their] children.” “Technically, if we do our job well, we don’t need to exist,” Baker responded. “We should be working ourselves out of a job.”
“Although,” Knollenberg added, “there might be another option after all: plastic surgery. Or, I think they’re calling it pigmentation surgery right now, I am not well versed in medicinal terminology. Anyway, it’s what Michael Jackson, the pop-star, did to himself to turn from a black person into a white one. And if I recall, he managed to pull that off quite successfully.”
The state senator also stated that “we have evolved far enough to be able to beat nature, and though we are yet to triumph over death, we can deal with a lot of problems with today’s technology, bad genes being one of them.”
He said: “In the early days of bio-engineering, we were struggling with curing diseases. And today, technology and biology are so developed that we actually have people who are becoming addicted to plastic surgery. We have people who can change their outer appearance completely with the help of a few simple procedures. And, thankfully, we are also able to change a person’s race without any problems whatsoever, which is what I think African-American kids should think about if they want to be more successful in school.”
“You know,” he added, “I am certainly no expert, but I have heard they can also change their outer appearance to white without actually modifying the size of their extremities…any of them, if you know what I mean. So, I guess that’s a fact that is bound to cheer them up,” Knollenberg said, causing widespread laughter, especially in the female section of the room. “Other than that, there’s really no point in misguiding anyone anymore – the fact to the matter is that white kids just do better in school and we should be able to give everyone equal opportunities in life.”
