Week 3 Thread
September 16th, 2016
Today as I was scrolling down social media on my down time, I came across a post that was going viral about a female college student from Kansas State University posing in a Snapchat with a black facial mask on and showing a gang sign with the caption "feels good to finally be a nigga". It has been brought to the schools attention as racist and the college student is now expelled as she was in her senior year. With how controversial social media is now a days you really have to watch what you say. As the student said in an interview that she was just doing it to be funny to her friend group. She has nothing against black people. Do you think the school should have gone as far as there actions went to expel the student from school?
http://abc13.com/education/students-expelled-over-racist-snapchat/1513976/
I am anti-racism, but we live in a complicated culture that has long been informed by racist attitudes. It's difficult to sort intentions, so when some action is called out as racist, the scales are difficult to see clearly.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if expulsion was best. The school might have asked the student to write about, reflect upon, and share (via social media) her sense of how what she did was offensive; that might have offered an opportunity for learning rather than shaming and silencing. Now, should racism be shamed? Yes. But in this case, I think the call to sit with the stupid action might have been a good move.
What do you think?