Let’s see if we’ve got this right…
- School officials asked a group of students to wear white (one of the school’s official colors) during school spirit festivities.
- The student (who happens to be white, and, yes, it’s pertinent to the story) does as instructed and dons all white attire and takes a photo of himself wearing his all white outfit and for added emphasis make a “W” symbol with his hands. And, naturally, he posts it on social media.
- School officials suspend him from 3 football games for being a racist because of the hand signal.
Do they think he would have made the hand signal if he’d been assigned to wear either the red or blue colors of the school? Doubtful. He thought he was showing school spirit.
Now, to be fair, there’s never a lot of detail with these school stories, and there’s really no way to know if this student has a history of problems or if this is the first incident with the “W”. But from what has been published, it certainly looks like the school officials may have gone overboard just a tad (or a whole whale!)
What do you think?
You can read the full story here and see a picture of the young man’s spirited attire.
As an aside… I searched high and low for the “white pride hand signal” but was unable to find it. Maybe this is something specific to Des Moines, IA? Or maybe just this principal…
Photo credit WHOtv.com
