Racism comes to schools in our region

Last week no less than three high schools in the region were dealing with a string of racial incidents.

It’s been a little more than two months since a group of white nationalists, Ku Klux Klan members and alt-right radicals marched through the streets of the quiet college town of Charlottesville, Va., carrying torches and spouting their hateful, racial rhetoric.

They had come to protest the removal of a Confederate statue.

This new overt form of racial hate was no longer hidden under a white hood. This was out in the open, publicly declaring their beliefs for all to see. The tiki torch replaced the burning cross.

The incident blew the lid off America’s festering sore.

Racism hasn’t gone away. It’s still there. But it’s no longer hidden.

It’s been emboldened by a nasty political environment that too often focuses on our differences as opposed to what brings us together.

Last week no less than three high schools in the region were dealing with a string of racial incidents. Is anyone surprised? This is what happens when the flame of racism is allowed to burn openly. Now school administrators are scrambling to tamp it down before it turns into a conflagration.

In South Jersey, a tense unease settled over Washington Township High School school after a series of text messages which included racial epithets circulated among some white students. There was a fight in the school corridor.

In Quakertown, officials there were dealing with the fallout after the Cheltenham High School cheerleaders were mocked with racial epithets at a football game. Rocks were thrown at the Cheltenham buses.

At Coatesville High School in Chester County, two separate incidents pushed racial unease to the brink.

Several weeks ago a black doll was found hanging in a locker room. Members of the high school boys cross country team locker room told school officials they found the doll in a trash can and kept it in their locker room as a “mascot” until a team member used his tie to hang it from the ceiling.

The kids told administrators it was a “foolish prank,” not something rooted in hate. Not everyone got the joke.

Then a photo hit social media that depicted several students posing with pumpkins that had been carved with racial symbols such as a swastika and the letters KKK. Not exactly the great pumpkin.

The latest incident is being looked at by both the school administration and local police.

Coatesville Superintendent Cathy Taschner vowed these troubling incidents will not define the school.

They worked with students, who organized a “unity” rally outside school Friday morning.

Principal Michele Snyder said she was proud of the way Coatesville students reacted.

“We are very proud of our students who stand in unity against hatred,” she said.” We continue to insist that these events will not define us, and we will rise above them.”

Both Snyder and Taschner said that “hate has no place in our school district.”

Quakertown Superintendent Bill Harner was blunt. “This is not just a one-time incident. We have a problem,” he said.

No one should be surprised. Young people mimic what they see and hear.

What happens on the campaign trail, what is said by our political leaders, sets the agenda for our public discourse.

If it is OK for white nationalists to carry torches and march openly in the streets, why shouldn’t young people with similar feelings do the same?

In most of these instances, kids are not armed with torches. They have a much more effective means of sharing their racial animus.

The proliferation of social media takes images and thoughts that once were “whispered down the lane” and with a simple click now are shared with the world.

If adults have lowered the standard when it comes to racial tolerance, it’s up to adults to build it back up again.

Doing nothing or ignoring these incidents as “pranks” is no longer an option. We run the risk of sending young people a very dangerous message: It’s OK to hate, to normalize intolerance and racism.

It’s not new, but it is clearly a growing, emboldened threat. We continue to ignore it at our own – and our children’s –peril.

Crosby, Stills and Nash were right after all: Teach your children well.