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A video of two Terrebonne High School students making racist comments against African-Americans recently went viral on social media and sparked massive outrage online.
In the disturbing footage, the Caucasian students can be seen using the N-word repeatedly while pointing to the African-American students around them. One of the students can also be heard saying that they "hate" their African American schoolmates.
As the video circulated online, netizens mentioned that racism is still alive in America and that the incident at Louisiana's Terrebonne High School is an active example of the same:
Following the social media outrage, two students seen in the video were arrested on grounds of hate crime. The Houma Police Department issued an official statement after the arrest and said that racially inappropriate behavior would not be tolerated by officials:
“We would like to encourage parents to have a conversation with their children about what occurred today and find out if they were affected by it. We would also like to encourage everyone to be patient and allow the proper authorities to handle this situation as the investigation continues.”
Lt. Travis Theroit added that the incident was “disgusting” and mentioned that the town does not condone such behavior:
“It’s disgusting, it’s terrible. That’s absolutely [not] something that this police department nor this town condones.”
Officials confirmed that the two arrested students are facing charges of hate crimes, inciting a riot, and cyberbullying.
Twitter reacts to controversial Terrebonne High School video
A video showing a few Caucasian Terrebonne High School students using racial slurs and making racially inappropriate comments against other African-American students recently circulated online.
The clip sparked outrage on social media and also led to the arrest of two students on grounds of hate crimes. Several social media users also took to Twitter to condemn the behavior of the students in the video:
As reactions continued to pour in online, Terrebonne Parish School District Superintendent Bubba Orgeron issued an official statement addressing the situation. The statement said:
“Terrebonne Parish School District is aware of a student video with despicable language and thoughts. This type of behavior and disgusting display of content will never be tolerated by our School System and has been immediately addressed by the School, District, and proper authorities.”
Former Terrebonne school board member Roosevelt Thomas told Fox 8 that they have not witnessed such disturbing behavior in the past 16 years of their career:
“In my previous 16 years, there was nothing to this magnitude. I thought those days and time were gone, but evidently you have some people who still seem to have a different impression of people and want to call them different names.”
Additionally, child advocate Wanda Ruffin-Triggs, who is also a candidate for the school board, said that parents should communicate with their children about why the word should not be used:
“The word is being trivialized again. I think that parents of all cultures, mine included, need to talk with their children about the impact of this word, the background, the history of this word, and why we don’t want it used.”
Meanwhile, the Houma Police Department said the incident was still under investigation.
