Ear Hustle

High School Students Hail ‘White Power’ After Winning Basketball Game

highschool basket ball

 

A Michigan high school has shocked residents with racist tweets sent last Thursday celebrating the Howell High School’s boys basketball team’s win over Grand Blanc, MLive.com reports.

According to the news site, several students are now facing disciplinary action for hailing their “white” team’s victory following the 54-49 win in the Class A regional final that took place at Linden High School.

Some of the tweets, as reported by the site, included:

“Not only did we beat Grand Blanc but we’re all white. Howell’s the definite winner tonight.”

“All hail white power. #HitlerIsMyDad”

“Tonight was probably one of the most racists nights of my life. I heard so many slurs and expressions. I also said a few things …”

Other choice hashtags included #kkk #lightthecross #rosaparks and #wewhite.

Grand Blanc has both black and white players.

Howell High School Principal Jason Schrock said that disciplinary action was meted out, but refused to clarify, saying the school is trying to move forward.

The Grand Blanc schools superintendent, Norman Abdella, was floored by the tweets, saying that it was “hard to believe that the racial banality expressed through those messages even exists in this day and age.” However, he trusts Howell to diffuse the situation in an appropriate manner, MLive notes, even defending the school to a certain degree.

“It would be totally unfair to judge a district or a school based on the actions of individual students or supporters,” he said in an email statement to the Flint Journal, according to MLive. “I have great confidence that no one in authority within the Howell School District would ever encourage or condone these types of sentiments and expect that they will effectively deal with this situation internally.”

And sure enough, the apologies started to roll in from the Twitter users caught in the action.

However, according to Grand Blanc students interviewed by MLive, this display of racism from Howell students isn’t anything new.

Still, Schrock asked for understanding in helping to take care of the situation and not allow social media to “blow up” the problem.

“Let us be able to work with the students who made these mistakes, who have self-corrected. We have addressed it with them and their families and we’d like to move on and focus on the positive things,” Schrock said. “Unfortunately, even though both teams played their hearts out and worked hard all season, there were students on both sides that did some egregious things that they regret and those actions have started to overshadow the positive things that both sides are accomplishing.”

Howell, for its part, is still expected to play Mt. Pleasant in the quarterfinal on Tuesday.

 

Source:  The Root

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Most Popular

To Top