Every week I keep hoping that maybe this will be the one where I don’t have to talk about kids being trash. It’s only Monday and this already ain’t the week.
According to KMOV, students at Hixson Middle School in Webster Groves, Missouri, sent a racist meme to two classmates. The meme showed an image of a white man spraying a black child with a hose and had the words “go be a n*gger somewhere else.” When the parents of the children found out, they alerted the school principal and superintendent. While the school officials were empathetic to the situation, the parents believe that the district should step in and handle the situation. The district so far has only issued a statement that said:
“Upon learning of what had reportedly happened, the school’s administrators responded immediately. You can be assured that this kind of behavior has no place in our schools and will not be tolerated. We place great value on empathy and respect in our learning environment and have district policies in place that set high expectations for students.”
The school hasn’t said what, if any, disciplinary action has been taken as it would violate privacy laws.
This, folks, is why parents need to be far more vigilant about what their kids are exposed to online. While it’s possible that the parents of these children hold some repugnant beliefs, it’s also quite likely that the children stumbled upon these memes themselves. The white nationalist playbook is to lure impressionable youth with memes, soft-peddling the idea that they are somehow better than any other racial group because they can put raisins in everything. I hope steps are being taken to make sure these kids are just assholes and not in the process of being radicalized.
Sigh. I remember when we thought the internet was going to make things better.