Here we go again.
Currently, there are a pair of videos circulating the Internet in which Paula Deen’s 14-year-old understudy—who may or may not grow up to become a judge or Linda Fairstein—is showing her complete ass by spewing racist epithets.
It’s not every day a Bullard High School cheerleader adorned in blackface interrupts your Twitter feed to boldly proclaim, “Who said I can’t say nigga?”
Yet, here we are.
In a subsequent video recorded on her school campus, she blurts out, “What nigga?” after being prompted to deliver that magical five-letter word that keeps her teeth white.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the villainous mayosapien in question hails from Bullard—the most affluent neighborhood “in an otherwise impoverished school district” that’s rife with racial tension. A city just days removed from branding Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as one of America’s “enemies of freedom” during a Fresno Grizzlies baseball game. Oh, and they also compared her to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un—which cost the team sponsorships with Tecate, Dos Equis and Sun-Maid.
The racist videos were initially posted on Snapchat, but became national news when Fresno community activist Stacy Williams shared the clips on her Facebook page after a Fresno Unified School District teacher brought them to her attention.
“Even though we’re in California, we’re a very old-time, conservative town, and this racist behavior is very embedded in our community,” Williams said. “There’s a deep-rooted history of white people using their power over people of color in our city with little to no accountability.”
Thus far, Fresno schools Superintendent Bob Nelson has declined to confirm the identity of the student or reveal if any punishment was issued due to her being underage.
“It’s very serious,” Nelson said. “We need to hold her accountable for her actions and the implications thereof. […] I don’t want to diminish the significance of the pain and anguish that this causes in others. That being said, I want to do more than just see people attack one another on social media. It doesn’t help us do the very real work we need to do.”
Community activists are less than pleased with how the situation has been handled and have been very vocal in the school district’s need to properly correct course.
“The bias that the Fresno Unified School District has shown against black boys and people of color, this is historic,” activist JePahl White said. As a teenager, he and his five siblings attended Bullard High School. “This is not new.”
The blackface video “is a huge opportunity for Fresno Unified to get in front of this and to create programs and training around implicit bias, racial bias. But I’m not holding my breath. This is Fresno.”
With this being the last week of school, Nelson is on borrowed time to come up with a solution. Reportedly a meeting with the student body has been planned but is not yet scheduled.