Lessons on Racism for White Students at This Detroit-Area High School — Because, Goddamn
Most Americans already know what's been hiding in the water in Flint, Michigan: dangerous levels of lead and other lethal toxins. But whatever mind-warping poisons lie in the supply 75 miles southeast in Grosse Pointe Farms — a nearly all-white Detroit suburb — remain a mystery.
Officials at Grosse Pointe South High School apologized this week after an anti-black rant from some of its students surfaced in an online video.
The footage shows students using racial slurs and advocating that black people be shipped back to Africa, segregated from whites or re-enslaved to restore white rule in the United States.
"Alright — so what are you going to do to them in 2040?" one student asks another, referring to his plans for African-Americans.
"They're going to be owned by white people and white people are going to be the dominant [sic] of the country," the other student replies. The students also talked about burning blacks at the stake, maiming the enslaved with cattle brands and trading them for booze.
Principal Moussa Hamka condemned the comments as a "deplorable" violation of the school's code of conduct, the Associated Press reported Friday. "The majority of our students and community members do not accept and will not tolerate such bigotry," Hamka said in an email. He also indicated the students in the video could face consequences.
This is the second time in recent months Grosse Pointe officials have had to address racism among their white students. In March, the school suspended four students who posed in a photograph with the word "n*gger" scrawled on their stomachs and legs.
The photo went viral online. Grosse Pointe's new NAACP chapter praised the school's response to that incident.
"It's not easy to stand up to bigotry, especially if you have people out there saying, 'You can't control people's attitudes, you can't impose your values on others,'" Greg Bowens, co-founder of the chapter, saidLessons on Racism for White Students at This Detroit-Area High School — Because, Goddamn:
these girls got suspended for 5 days when they should've been expelled. they go to desert vista high school pic.twitter.com/q3Q5UKmh04— blarissa (@calerissa) January 22, 2016
White Michigan students suspended for writing the word n*gger across their stomaches: https://t.co/rCTeYufdQ6 pic.twitter.com/PU0tXkpFfj— The Root (@TheRoot) March 16, 2016
