A disturbing photo has surfaced of a group of students from a Georgia High School tennis team posing with white bags over their heads like they are repping the Ku Klux Klan.
Eight boys from Telfair County High School in McRae, Ga., posted the jarring photo reportedly because they were mad that they couldn’t beat a black tennis team, reports the Washington Post.
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The photo was taken on a school bus following the team’s defeat in a state tournament. The shocking pic of the hooded white boys was then posted on Snapchat and quickly started making the rounds on social media.
“I heard they were playing around, but you don’t play like that,” Telfair High 10th-grader Sheena Wooten, who is African American, told 13WMAZ.
Wooten told 13WMAZ she doesn’t think the students are racist. “They’re really cool people. They never did anything to me that was racist.”
The school’s response
The school Principal Eric Cowart called the photo “highly offensive” and according to the Washington Post, the students have been disciplined.
“This is not kids being kids, this is racists being racists and the principal should take immediate action to send a message that this will not be tolerated. Expulsion immediately!” wrote one Facebook user.
“Someone should organize a rally or something,” another user wrote. “And we all need to come back to show we will not allow this behavior at our school.”
The school’s Superintendent Lendard Harrelson released this statement:
“The School District does not approve of this highly offensive behavior. An investigation was initiated and the students have received punishments accordingly,” the Superintendent stated.
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The social media racism trend
Posting racists pictures and videos has become a disturbing trend at many schools and universities.
Just last month, two white college students—one from Penn State University and the other from William Paterson University—were seen yelling vulgar, racist, hateful obscenities in two separate videos that have now gone viral.
The Penn State student is seen screaming: “N**ger, n**ger, n**ger, n**ger,” into the camera and “If you’re offended you can suck my d*ck.”
The other student, who is a Delta Phi Epsilon sorority member at William Paterson and has been outed by the school’s newspaper as Jasmine Barkley, asks whether she can use the n-word since many rap songs mention it in their songs.