What happens when you mix arrogance, privilege, and ignorance?

You get four white boys in South Carolina who think rape jokes are so funny that it’s worth photographing themselves with letters on their bare chests that spell out R-A-P-E.

 

Boys will be boys when they’re white, thugs when they’re not.

In that case a local parents group posted a smart statement calling the entire school community to do better.

“The assumption these young men seem to have made is that their position and privilege allows them to make ‘jokes’ about rape as a viable threat. We trust that the school administration, the district and the parents involved would never condone either that implicit attitude or the behavior itself. We are puzzled, however, that no action seems to have been taken at the game, when these young men were standing proudly in front of attendees, the teams, and the coaching staff.”

I’m sure the parents of these boys reprimanded them with some version of “what the hell were you thinking!?!?”

Parent knows kids do dumb things. Condemn these kids and their families too quickly and it might be your turn next in the “I can’t believe what my kid did today” lottery.

But kids in a rape culture that has elected Captain Grab ‘Em In The Pussy for president seem to have license to be even dumber than before.

And, like their president, even more prone to hiding behind “I think we’ve become too politically correct” as a veil for misogyny, and racism.

Take Taylor Ragg (please Lord), the Transylvania University student is who encouraged his social media network to report a fellow students who public about her undocumented status.

“Everyone go report this illegal at my school bragging about breaking the law,” he wrote.

This is Ragg (nice hat, looks familiar).

Then there is Becky, Becky, and Bear in the picture below.

These two girls in Robertsdale, Alabama thought like Ragg. Signs joking about the deportation of immigrants is good comedy. And, of course, they documented it for social media; one of them holding a Trump sign, the other a sign that said “put the panic back in Hispanic.”

This photo, circulating on Facebook, was taken at Robertsdale High School following the school's pep rally on Friday, Sept. 15, 2017. (Facebook photo)

Isn’t that hysterical?

See, what happened was, their rival team is called the Toros and these signs were a play on words.

An attorney for one of the girls (yes, she has an attorney) said “this is a kind of sophomoric or juvenile joke that’s kind of gotten out of control…Spanish and Hispanic. It was a pun, and the Trump thing just kind of put it in context of the actual racial slight.”

I’d like to say these are isolated incidents that are blown up in media, and that we shouldn’t worry too much.

But the examples seem endless….

And the examples seem so similar….

And the participants seem to make a recurring statement….

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You have to wonder how young people who live in entirely different states have gotten the same inspiration to put work into being casually, but overtly, racist?

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And these are “good” kids in allegedly “good” schools, and in college.

They are supposed to be the gold standard of academic achievement (the standard we use as a goal for closing the “achievement gap”).

So, what the hell are they learning in school? Who are their teachers? What do their history books look like?

How can any system of learning produce this….

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If this is the future, we should all be scared.

 

 

 

Chris Stewart is the Chief Executive Officer of Education Post, a media project of the Results in Education Foundation. He is a lifelong activist and 20-year supporter of nonprofit and education-related causes. Stewart has served as the director of outreach and external affairs for Education Post, the executive director of the African American Leadership Forum (AALF), and an elected member of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education.

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