Final evening, ABC’s Abbott Elementary did one thing uncommon for up to date tv — it defended a white character from being punished for the colour of his pores and skin.

Wednesday’s episode, “Valentine’s Day,” was not “conservative” by any means because the white character, Jacob (Chris Perfetti), is a left-wing trainer on the present. Nonetheless, the episode rejected the concept white academics cannot train black college students about black historical past.

Within the episode, a pupil’s black father or mother complains to the principal as a result of a white trainer is instructing his son historical past throughout Black Historical past Month.

Tristan: I am right here to complain. 

Ava: Oh. Please proceed.

Tristan: I take umbrage with the very fact that Mr. Hill, a white trainer, is instructing black historical past to my son and different college students throughout Black Historical past Month. 

Ava: Okay, Mr. Umbrage. What would you like me to do about it? 

Tristan: You would have a black trainer instructing it. 

Ava: Or we might preserve having Mr. Hill train it, as a result of if you concentrate on it, underpaying a white trainer to show Black historical past is nearly reparation. High quality. Nicely, I am unable to do something till I observe for myself. By no means heard you utter a phrase. Now you bust out “umbrage.” 

The present’s operating joke about Ava is that she is a principal who has zero curiosity in studying or schooling. She blackmailed her approach into the job and spends working hours on private self-importance tasks. However after agreeing to observe Jacob’s class, she turns into fascinated by his lectures, exhibits up each week and takes notes on the fabric.

The operating joke about Jacob is that he’s an uber-woke “progressive” ideologue to the purpose the place he annoys his colleagues. On this episode, his leftist leanings are within the classroom and given extra seriousness.

Jacob: Like Part 1 Tony Stark, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King had been each anti-capitalists. 

Scholar: You appear a bit shaky, Mr. Hill. Are you good?

Jacob: Oh, yeah. I am good. I’m…completely high-quality. Ava has been in my final three lessons, okay? Both that is some time-intensive prank, or I get fired…for instructing black historical past. I flew too near the solar. Like an anti-racist Icarus. Sure, uh, Principal Coleman? 

Ava: Simply ensuring you do not pass over the half about Martin Luther King Jr. wanting common fundamental earnings. You talked about it two durations in the past, however you forgot to say it final interval. 

Jacob: Uh, thanks, Ms. Coleman, for publicly calling me in. You understand what? Let’s course-correct. Everyone seize a associate. We’re gonna do some paired studying, okay? I believe we have an odd quantity in the present day, so there’s gonna should be a bunch of three. 

Ava: Why do not you simply pair any individual up with me? [ Students gasp.] 

Jacob: You wish to…learn?

Ava: Or not it’s your personal academics, do not it.

Jacob is unquestionably the form of trainer who would concentrate on anti-capitalism and common fundamental earnings. I doubt he balances that with the financial concepts of black conservatives, like Thomas Sowell. 

Nonetheless, Jacob is not below hearth for his ideological bent. He is focused for being white whereas instructing black college students.

Ava rejects this perspective. When the complaining father or mother returns, she makes clear that Jacob will proceed to show the children.

Paul: Oh. Hey, Dad. 

Ava: Paul and I had been simply discussing in the present day’s black historical past lesson. 

Tristan: And I wager it was higher contemplating Mr. Hill wasn’t instructing it. 

Ava: Oh, he was instructing it, and he is gonna proceed to. Do not choose him by the colour of his pores and skin or by the content material of his class. Wow. I simply made that up! [ Giggles ] 

Tristan: So that you did not hearken to any of my issues? 

Ava: Why are you simply now becoming concerned? I discovered in school that Jacob teaches about black historic figures all 12 months, not simply February. Did you simply begin paying consideration this month? 

Tristan: Oh. I did not know that. 

Ava: Nor did I. Appears to be like like we each discovered one thing in the present day. [ Chuckles softly.]

Tristan: Son. 

Paul: Goodbye. 

Ava: What a disgrace. So scorching, but so very annoying.

In an leisure setting riddled with anti-white hostility, it is unhappy {that a} present feels refreshing only for refusing to punish a white character for the colour of his pores and skin.

Whereas “Valentine’s Day” leaned left within the classroom, it is storyline additionally resisted the anti-white discrimination of in the present day’s radical left. In 2023, that alone makes Abbott Elementary distinctive.