Date: 2025-04-03 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00018153 | |||||||||
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Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess | |||||||||
| Wisconsin school officials' non-response to Nazi salute photo gives a green light to open racism David Neiwert for Daily Kos Daily Kos Staff Monday January 20, 2020 · 12:00 PM EST Recommend 217 Share Tweet250 Comments 250 New The junior boys' class of Baraboo High School eagerly gave a Nazi salute in 2018; two years later, the school is awash in open racism. RSS PUBLISHED TO David Neiwert Daily Kos TAGS Baraboo Racism Wisconsin Share this article Remember the scandal that erupted last year when the entire junior boys class at Baraboo, Wisconsin, was photographed giving the Nazi salute? Remember how the school district wound up just dismissing those concerns, claiming that the teenagers’ real intent was impossible to discern? What’s now clear is that the coddling of the students became a gigantic green light for white boys to just be as racist as they want to be. The story that emerged this week of a black girl’s experience at the school is just the stuff of any decent parent’s nightmares. According to the lawsuit filed by 17-year-old Dasia Banks against the district, her experience at Baraboo High School was an endless parade of bigotry, threats, bullying, violence, and sexual assault. Students shoved her in the hallways, paraded Confederate flags in her face, called her the N-word, and left threatening notes in her locker. At one point, a student asked another in Banks’ presence: “Is it a hate crime if you slap a black girl?” “I voiced my opinion and stood up for myself, but it got to the point where it just felt like there was no point in me saying anything,” Banks told The Daily Beast. When Banks complained to school officials, they declined to investigate her complaints, refusing to review the video files that would have corroborated her story. This is similar to the response of school officials over the Hitler-salute photo. Jordan Blue, one of the few students in the photo who declined to join in on the salute, told a local newspaper that his classmates were trying to make an “upsetting” joke. The salute apparently occurred at the photographer’s encouragement. One of the people present said the students spent “about five minutes taking pictures and laughing” about their salute. Superintendent Lori Mueller sent a letter to parents explaining that the district was “not in a position to punish the students for their actions” because of their First Amendment rights. “As previously stated, we cannot know the intentions in the hearts of those who were involved,” she wrote. The problems in Baraboo, clearly, run much deeper than just the photo. | |||||||||