In recent years, 30 Rock’s 2006-2013 run continues to echo throughout the culture. 30 Rock might end up being the most prescient TV show of the 21st century. Not a week goes by where there isn’t some 30 Rock-esque storyline happening culturally, politically or socially. One of the running gags on 30 Rock was that Tracy Morgan and Jane Krakowski’s actor-characters (Tracy and Jenna) were idiots who were constantly getting into trouble whenever they opened their mouths. Well, welcome to this week’s 30 Rock storyline – the real Tracy Morgan made fun of teachers. Even more specifically: underpaid, under-resourced, underappreciated public-school teachers who are just trying to survive and educate the youths. Tracy did this in his Variety Actors-on-Actors piece with Marcello Hernandez, who is currently an SNL cast member.
Tracy Morgan is causing a stir after his diss of teachers during his Variety and CNN “Actors on Actors” appearance. The “Saturday Night Live” alum was paired with breakout cast member Marcello Hernández, who were discussing what it would have been like to be on “SNL” together or grow up together.
The Miami-born comedian then opened up about misbehaving in school. “They told me I did mischief in school. Mischief. I talk too much. I was excessive talking,” Hernández said dramatically, panning to camera.
“The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins” star pushed back. “You know who gave you that voice?” he said. “No, they didn’t understand you. You had a sense of humor. And they couldn’t control that. God gave that to you.”
Hernández agreed. “And now look at it. I’m getting paid for mischief.”
Morgan responded, “And they still making minimum wage,” before taking a sip from his mug.
The comment seemed to take Hernández by surprise, saying “no” before laughing. But Morgan continued. “You know how much them teachers probably making right now?” Hernández replied, “Man, not enough.”
Morgan continued, “And I can’t stand teachers. You know why? Because they have a ceiling. They have a limit. That’s all they ever gonna be. Man, I teach my kids, sky’s the limits.”
The comment elicited a spit take from Hernández. But after Variety shared a clip of the conversation, users online were less amused.
This is insane and yet very on-brand for Tracy Jordan. I mean, Tracy Morgan. Someone get Liz Lemon on the phone, Tracy pissed off teachers!! I’ve cued the video, below, to the part about teachers. Marcello seems to think Tracy is saying it for laughs at first, but then he realized that Tracy was being dead serious. I’m not going to defend Tracy here, but I doubt this will blow up into a bigger thing, unless we really are living in a 30 Rock-ass storyline. I mean, what would Liz Lemon do? Send Tracy on MS NOW to tell Rachel Maddow that he actually loves teachers, except for science teachers because of [insert dinosaur conspiracy].
Screencaps courtesy of Variety’s YouTube video.
I’m not defending what he said at all (my parents were public schoolteachers), but I have numerous Black classmates who were told to dream small by white teachers. So that may be the context for what he said.
Yes, I’ve seen that, too, But kicking down at a profession because they don’t get paid well is certainly a choice. He teaches his kids the sky is the limit; okay, Mr. Morgan. Did you also teach them to scam millions from a lawsuit, claiming you would never be able to work again and then had a “miraculous” recovery after you collected the settlement? Who gets famous is often a stroke of luck. Many truly funny, hardworking comics/actors never make it past the audition phase for whatever reason (can’t get a good agent, don’t have the right contacts, don’t have a certain “look” or sound, etc.). Whatever it was, Tracy got lucky and good for him. Teachers made a choice to enter that career knowing they would never get rich out of it. Many went into debt with student loans to teach our children. I admire them more than Tracy Morgan any day.
The implication I drew from his comments is that was considered a weakness in school is what helped him to make money in real life.
For a lot of students who are probably not great in school but went on to be successful, I do think there’s some truth in his statement though I wouldn’t phrase things the way he has as it can insulting to the very good teachers. The “unconventional” students do tend to do very well in life in ways one might not expect.
I wouldn’t blame this on teachers but I do think that systems, rather than individuals. tend to evaluate “weaknesses” incorrectly. And unfortunately individuals have to carry out those systems.
Yep cio. I got it from all sides. I had a white female Hispanic highschool teacher embarrass me by using a recommendation letter to bash me and praise herself. Had a black teacher call me a liar because i went to a out of state science museum. Had a white male teacher say “ not you all. This isnt for you all.” He was talking about activities in the workbook. Im under 35.
Tracy is older than me and from new york.
Tiffi, I’m sorry that happened to you and I hope you’re living a dream life now.
I get what y’all are saying but at the same time, denigrating someone based on their paycheck is just low. We should all know by now that your worth as a human being is not based on your bank account.
Retired teacher here. Sigh. A few times over the years I suggested to some of my male African students ( this is Australia where they actually are from African countries) why don’t they consider teaching. Because there needs to be some role models for these students in schools. I always got the same response: they were aghast at the suggestion. Like I was trying to tell them they should shovel S**t. Very demoralising.
It’s being suggested not to generalize teachers, but this also seems like somewhat of a generalization. Maybe this kind of observation which seems like it can only apply to a few, rather than a whole group of people, is why people are torn on how to react to Morgan’s statement. I find it hard to believe everyone from a specific ethnic, national, or racial group would reject taking up teaching as a profession.
He categorized all teachers in one category. So I will do the same for him. I never cared for his humor. I take back the compassion I had for him when he was struggling with his recuperation journey. This teacher went to grad school, constantly retrained to keep up with the latest teaching innovations, and spent the little money I earned on student supplies. Encouraged my students to prepare themselves for the “new world order” that was coming and worldwide competition for jobs.
Retired after 38 years. Enjoyed teaching the students despite attitudes like his.
Thank you for your service. I have 2 sisters who are teachers (1 retired last year) and everything you say is true. They are some of the most loving, kind, compassionate people I have ever met. Working hard even on the weekends. Trying to come up with new and innovative ways to teach kids with different learning styles. Continually taking classes to learn new technologies and teaching methods. Tracy Morgan can eff all the way off.
It’s a bit of a struggle, but I’ll keep my thoughts about Morgan’s own apparent “ceiling” to myself.
There’s a “ceiling” on most professions, Tracy– even the white collar ones.
We have a lot of teachers in our family and I’ve come to view it as maybe the most thankless profession a person can hold. Teachers are expected to be educators, babysitters, counselors, caretakers, therapists and on and on. On top of that, they’re expected to devote an insane amount of their personal time to work-related things like PTA meetings, before/after school activities, and grading papers. Then there’s all the shaming and blaming from parents; trying to manage all those different personalities with all their different expectations. Then people say teachers have it easy because they have their summers off. Bitch, NOBODY would take the job if it didn’t offer summer off because anyone dealing with kids all day would burn out in less than a year.
Also, my SIL is a teacher in a Massachusetts public school and she makes very good money, probably not too much less than I make working in financial services. In MA you have to have your Masters so that, plus the high cost of living means a 6 figure salary for some teachers in our state.
I’m not even mad at Tracy Morgan but it’s just a dumb thing to say. We need to show more appreciation to our teachers.
Morgan is a 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬 who I CANNOT STAND!🤬
I can’t stand self-professed, self-serving ‘comedians’ who don’t make me laugh. Especially when they get all up in themselves! “You know why? Because they have a ceiling. They have a limit. That’s all they ever gonna be.” They’ve made a conscious decision to limit their compassion, their humanity. They’ve put a deliberate ceiling on their growth and ability to connect with other people – a starting point for comedy, for humor. I’m telling you – “Man, I teach my kids, sky’s the limits.” Don’t be like these holier than thou inarticulate, egotistic ‘comedians’ who dismiss whole swaths of people, many of whom are smarter and more humorous.
IIRC, the man has suffered a serious head injury.
He probably did have a very bad experience with a teacher or teachers.
At least he didn’t name them Jimmy Kimmel haha. Maybe the latter route might have been less controversial even if it could be personally embarrassing to that individual teacher.
I disagree with Tracy’s take on teachers, but I understand where it may have come from. As a Black boy, many teachers put limits on you because of their own prejudice. My dad experienced this. He was a veritable math genius and had a teacher that refused to give him 100% on a math test. He had to go over the teacher’s head to the principal to get the proper credit so his GPA would not be destroyed. This was in 1940s NYC public schools. They told my dad he would not need all that math to be a janitor or a porter. My dad earned a Doctoral degree and ran his own very successful business.
So while I disagree with Tracy’s take on teachers in general, I can understand how he might have come to that conclusion from his own personal experience.
Yeah, I disagree but I understood. I taught HS in Flatbush Brooklyn not that long ago and I can easily imagine why he said that. I don’t agree and found it to be pretty harsh and lacking in empathy but I would be lying if I can’t see where it came from. There’s a reason there are documentaries and discussions about the school to prison pipeline. I’ve been impressed by some of the nuanced comments today on this site. My faith in the world and even this site on celebrating anything other than white celebrities has been low lately. Aside from the Meghan content anyways. No shade bc I love me some white celebrities but I’m always happy to have some diversity in that coverage. And no, one or two posts maybe about a non-white celebrity doesn’t really cut it for me. And sure have some articles about negative topics around a poc of color but balance it with some positive ones too. I appreciated the posts about Regina Hall and maybe there was one about Keke Palmer last week. I’m tired y’all. Bon-deep and if this comment is too critical then feel free to delete.
Sorry, didn’t mean to disclude Jlo or Kim Kardashian.
He’s on the older side.
I think kids today are likely to have more positive experiences with their teachers today who are, well, from a younger generation, and are more likely to be enlightened and have gone through extensive training for certain issues, but if you’re in his age range I feel the likelihood of having 1 or 2 teachers who were probably too severe could be on the higher side. There’s a reason John Hughes movies were popular at one time.
I am a teacher. I have young students who are racist, homophobes, and ignorant. I have older students who are compassionate and “enlightened” too. I work with old and young teachers. Some of the younger ones are more conservative than the older ones, who have seen it all. Many of the elders are super enlightened, caring, and advocates for students. Please consider that a person’s age doesn’t always correlate with their caring, ability, and “enlightenment”. Just like all teachers need to consider that a person’s race, color, hair, gender, age, ability, etc, doesn’t correlate to their intelligence. Let’s keep our minds and our hearts open.
I said he’s likely to have had 1 or 2 teachers who are severe. I didn’t flag all of his (older) teachers as being terrible (who might be over 90 at this point? He’s 57 – I looked up his age. )
I do think actual procedures are now in place to ensure there’s more caring occurring in the classroom, but I wouldn’t be surprised if those procedures were not in place when he was in school. I think this is more of a question of systemic enforcement and the systems evolving rather than a young or older individual teacher being more or less caring. A bad teacher today is more likely to be taken out of the profession because policies are in place (I would hope anyway).
I also want to add that when I sad teachers today are younger, that’s because they actually are. It’s highly unlikely a 90 year old would still be teaching today. Even a 55 or 60 year old teacher today is a lot younger than what his teachers would have been .
Mumster, all day what you said.
oh, this is gross and upsetting. I’m a school librarian with my master’s in education. I went back to grad school at 36 and got my first school librarian job at 38. I am well aware that some of my students look down upon my career – and TBH, I probably did too, when I was their age – but with age, comes wisdom, and a respect for people’s careers and how they contribute to society. Tracy has aged, but he hasn’t acquired wisdom.