Protest in Chicago after footage of white students in blackface emerges (PHOTOS, VIDEOS)
Approximately 1,000 students in Chicago staged a mass school walkout to protest a video uploaded by three of their white classmates dressed in blackface, harassing McDonald’s workers and using racial slurs.
In footage posted to Snapchat, the boys, who were later confirmed to be students of Homewood-Flossmoor High School, are seen harassing a black cashier at a McDonald’s drive thru while mocking African-American English. Seventy percent of the school's roughly 2,800 students are black.
Here’s a video of hundreds of H-F students marching down Kedzie Avenue in front of the school after walking out of class to protest a blackface incident involving white students pic.twitter.com/HmSSrf81bE
— Zak Koeske (@ZakKoeske) April 30, 2019
More video from today’s walkout at Homewood-Flossmoor. The students just kept coming and coming. pic.twitter.com/ewxmdgyTFC
— Zak Koeske (@ZakKoeske) April 30, 2019
Homewood Mayor Rich Hofeld and Flossmoor Mayor Paul Braun issued a joint statement condemning the boys’ behavior, while students at their school were afforded a 50-minute period Tuesday to protest.
“Please know that we understand your frustration,” school principal Jerry Lee Anderson wrote in a letter to parents on Tuesday. “The diversity of our communities represents our greatest strength and will be the catalyst that brings us together.”
However, the school has not provided additional details about the incident or how it intends to discipline the students responsible. Indeed, it remains unclear what legal right the school has to punish the children for their behavior off-campus given the protections afforded by the First Amendment which protects freedom of speech, however unsavory or offensive.
For this reason, commentators online have expressed disbelief at the situation and at the school administration’s response.
This the best thing to do right now since administration ain’t really trying to push anything 🤷🏽♂️I’m overall disgusted
— The shoe guy (@ChefTwap) April 30, 2019
Exactly. The school majority black , but most of the administration white. When they thought people was gang related they had no hesitation to offer expulsion and suspension. They even put gang affiliated on people transcripts 😴
— The shoe guy (@ChefTwap) April 30, 2019
Some called for the parents of the offending children to be punished.
Maybe it is time to give the parents some consequences...
— Sue Mautz 🌊 (@sawashington) April 30, 2019
While others issued calls for the children’s identities to be shared, in a similar fashion to the Covington High School controversy.
Also on rt.com Defamed by media, Covington Catholic student sues CNN for $275 millionUn-blur them faces. Let’s see them racists
— Logan Carver (@LoganCarver11) April 30, 2019
It's DoxxTime!
— PARAScope (@para_scope) April 30, 2019
Someone post their faces
— M (@PrincessMoses1) April 30, 2019
Some Twitter users claimed that many of the children protesting didn’t actually care about the incident and were just enjoying the time off class.
97% of these students don't care about the issue, they just want a day off school, 2% cry for the attention and the 1% that really do care and understand about what is happening just think the "perpetrators" are simply dumb.
— Montrose Halsted (@MontroseYou) April 30, 2019
Meanwhile, the boys involved have pleaded ignorance that blackface was offensive at all, which has already been disputed by their classmates.
They claimed they didn’t know what black face was. Bs.
— Armahri Brown (@minniemahri) May 1, 2019
“We were in the same class and we were taught (about blackface), so that’s how I know that they know what it is, so that’s just an invalid excuse,” an unnamed fellow student told the Chicago Tribune.
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