Black students at a Washington high school broke down in tears as they described the racism they’ve endured from their peers at a school board meeting, per KGW.
The alleged racist behavior occurred at Fort Vancouver High School, students testified at a Vancouver Public School Board meeting last week.
“Racism does happen at Fort Vancouver High School and our admin doesn’t know how to handle it,” sophomore student Relleesha Lewis, the president of the school’s Black Student Union, said.
Navon Morgan, a contracted school worker, said he witnessed “first-hand multiple instances of intentional anti-Black hate speech directed towards students that I work to uplift.”
“Things like this should not be acceptable,” student Fatou Bojang said through tears.
Bojang detailed an incident where a fellow student called her a monkey and the N-word after a confrontation on social media over an offensive post.
“Some of the things that she said were, and I quote, ‘and then you guys got offended, bruh. And maybe solve it like a behavioral person and not like a monkey.’ Those were some of the highlights that she said and some of her friends said ‘shut your monkey ass up, little ni—a, go jump off a f—king tree and eat some d–do bananas, little b-tch ass ni—a. I’ll f—k any of your homies up, so quit talking s—t, b-tch ass monkey,” Bojang said during the school board meeting.
Fort Vancouver students said it was normal to hear racial slurs in the hallways and racist language on social media. In another instance, a poster for a club supporting the mental health of Black teens was defaced with racist insults, including the N-word.
According to a spokesperson for Fort Vancouver High School, the superintendent met with the students who spoke at the school board meeting.
“If we partner and we have more people looking at these difficult issues, we’re going to get to a place and we’re going to ensure we have an environment where students feel safe, valued and heard,” Fort Vancouver Assistant Principal Luis Castro Quintanilla said in a statement.
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