Berkeley High School And Students Continue Fight Against Racist Threat
A 15-year-old Berkeley High School student might soon be facing criminal charges after admitting to posting racist slurs on a library computer Wednesday, which caused a massive walk out of 1,500 students on the following Thursday, according to Inside Bay Area News.
In the report, the students staged the walk out protest on the High School campus as well as UC Berkeley nearby, angry that the stunt threatened African-Americans, which was set up as a screensaver on the library computer, announcing there would be a public lynching on campus on December 9, 2015.
The protests were a sign that the students had had enough, as this is reportedly the third incident to take place on campus. Previously, a noose was placed on a tree and in another incident, the high school year books were tampered with right before publishing which degraded black students as the “trash collectors of tomorrow.”
Berkeley High School is the only public school serving the area, which according to registration records for 2014-2015, puts African-Americans as the second largest demographic next to whites for the entire high school.
Another article by the same source states that due to California law — as stated by Berkeley Unified spokesman Mark Copelan — the student responsible for the racist message will not be identified either by name or even by race.
“We’ll never hear about (the student’s race), that’s the nature of the state education code. From this point on, everything will be done to protect that student’s identity.”
Superintendent Donald Evans, the school’s principle Sam Pasarow and other administrators attended the march, supporting the high school student’s call for action and also added that the December date referred to in the racist message, would be used as a day to give back to the students.
The same day that the message and the student responsible was discovered, a Twitter account posing as the school’s principle Pasarow was created, which engaged with students and others over the incident also announcing that the student had finally been caught.
In those conversations, one user referred to as BlackPantherBo shared an article written for Afrikan Black Coalition that further explained the intimidation the high school students must have felt from the racist message and applauded their response.
“Today I saw what happens when innocence is routinely taken and replaced by oppression, and then I saw a glimpse of the Revolution.”
The “principle” also expressed a pragmatic reality with a tweet when asked about the student being arrested.
It wasn’t until late Friday evening that the official Berkeley high school Twitter account, posted the following tweet.
CHECK YOUR EMAILS AND UNFOLLOW @pasarow pic.twitter.com/RCo6Eru9Tz
— Berkeley High School (@Jacket__Pride) November 7, 2015
The media has covered many stories as of late about severe disciplinary action being taken against many High School students who incite fear into others, such as Irving High School’s Ahmed Mohamed, who was arrested for bringing a “hoax bomb” to school, which was reportedly meant to be a science project for his teacher; or the incident during Halloween week when a few sophomore students were arrested for dressing as the Columbine shooters as reported by the Inquisitr.
More good news to go with the immediate march follows when the high school tweeted a win against their rivals during a game.
Berkeley wins!! 38-30. Congrats Yellowjackets! Great game. #berkeleywins #gojackets #footballwin pic.twitter.com/c2gAcvUmoM
— BHS ATHLETICS (@BHSjacketSports) November 7, 2015
The Berkeley High School incident could be a turning point where more pressure is put on administrators and law makers to take racism seriously, to the point where stunts like these will no longer be tolerated.
[Featured Image By @Jacket_Pride via Twitter]
