It is times like these when I truly lose faith in humanity. Are people really this self-absorbed and ignorant?
Noah Crowley, an 18-year-old student who lives in Sarasota, Florida decided it would be a good idea to write this poster for his “promposal” 
I truly could not be more speechless. His girlfriend, whom the sign was made for, put this on her story and captioned it was “emoji heart eyes”. To me this was not a guy being simple naïve of his choice of wording. There is just no way around it, no excuse, that he did not know this was a racist slur. To the make the deliberate action to put it on a poster, and have a girlfriend who thinks it’s a good idea to post it on social media with emoji heart eyes‼ Are these people from the moon? Two students from the school released a statement on the student body’s behalf.
“The simple wording of this extremely inappropriate racial slur has shocked the majority of the Riverview student population along with much of our administration. It is absolutely disheartening that opinions such as these are still present in current generations. It shows that racism is still alive and thriving and that there needs to be a continuation of fighting for equality to rid of this hate once and for all.”
An extremely well worded statement however, it does not fix the fact this guy thought this was even okay. His family made a “deal” with administration that his punishment is to be banned from the dance and graduation ceremony. However, with this going viral I have a feeling his public consequences will end there. Are you all as shocked as I am to see this? Do you think the school administration is going too much or too little to punish him? Should his parents be scrutinized for this?
I heard about and saw this on social media about a day before I read this. I appreciate you discussing it. I would like to answer one of your questions. You asked whether or not his parents should be scrutinized. While I do agree that racism is a "taught" construct, this man--boy, is adult enough to know when he is being racist. As a high school, I would hope that he would have been exposed to situations that could possibly change this racist views. We can only blame the parents to a certain extent. It is vital for us as a generation, to correct adults, or anyone for that matter, who aims to defend white people's ignorance. You start a great conversation, when you ask if people are "really this ignorant?" The unfortunate answer has always been, "yes." Like you, I am discouraged to see things like this.
ReplyDeleteIt is always disheartening to see such blatant ignorance. I think his punishment was too light as someone his age should know better than to use racial slurs. I agree with Kaylah that Noah is an adult and is old enough to independently think and examine his actions; the parents can only share a little part of the blame. I think this opens up a debate if our education system is teaching high school students enough about America's history in slavery, segregation, and current racism that exists today. It often seems that there is not enough time dedicated to these topics in school, and I wonder if the number of situations like this would be reduced if we put more emphasis on African American history.
ReplyDelete