News 6: Racist or Generational? Teacher’s ‘cotton picking’ remark sparks community divide
by Briana Supardi
Fri, February 13, 2026 at 7:12 PM
BURNT HILLS, N.Y. (WRGB) — A controversial remark made by a substitute teacher to one of her students is now sparking broader community debate.
The comment was captured in the background of a student’s Chromebook video journal recorded during an eighth-grade class in the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake Central School District on Wednesday.
In the clip, the substitute teacher can be heard in the background telling a Black student, “Keep your cotton-picking hands to yourself.”
District leaders said they were made aware of the incident and launched an investigation. The substitute teacher was removed from the district’s substitute roster.
In a statement, the district said it does not “accept or overlook racist comments or actions in any form” and reaffirmed its commitment to maintaining a culture of safety and mutual respect.
To better understand the origins of the phrase, CBS6 spoke with Lacey Wilson, a program manager at the Underground Railroad Education Center in Albany.
Wilson said the expression traces back to the literal act of picking cotton by hand in the American South — labor performed largely by enslaved Black Americans and later by Black laborers through systems such as sharecropping and debt peonage.
“We know that a majority of the cotton picked in this country was by Black hands,” Wilson said, noting that the practice extended into the 20th century.
