LAKE STEVENS — Police are helping the Lake Stevens School District investigate a student’s racist social media post, according to a Monday night email to staff, families and students.
“We are reaching out to you to acknowledge a racist and hateful social media post being circulated among students in our school district,” Superintendent Ken Collins wrote in the email. “… While we have limited control over what students choose to do in their own homes, we strongly condemn any actions that make our students or employees feel unsafe.”
In a screenshot of a Snapchat post shared with The Daily Herald, a student wearing a “Let’s Go Brandon” T-shirt — a euphemism used in place of “(expletive) Joe Biden” — is holding a long gun in one hand with the caption, “going (expletive) huntin.”
At least one other student interpreted the shortening of “raccoon” in the student’s post as an offensive slur for a Black person.
One student reposted the screenshot alongside a definition of the word that states, “It’s rooted in the racist history of Blackface.”
The slur has a long, harmful history, originating during the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It was among the language used to dehumanize and commodify Black people.
District spokesperson Jayme Taylor said regardless of the intent of the post, “we have zero tolerance for this behavior, and it is not representative of our school district.”
She said the district recognizes the “fear, anger and division” that students, employees and families of color may be feeling.
The district received multiple reports from students on Saturday and contacted the Lake Stevens Police Department on Sunday, Taylor said.
Collins said the district was partnering with the police to look into the “origins and intentions” of the post. The district’s own investigation was ongoing, Taylor said.
According to Lake Stevens school district policy, “‘Harassment, intimidation, or bullying’ means any intentional written message or image, including those that are electronically transmitted,” shown to be motivated by one’s identity — including race, color, religion, or gender — that harms another student, interferes with a student’s education, creates “an intimidating or threatening educational environment,” or disrupts “orderly operation of the school.”
Collins said the district is “incredibly thankful” to the students who reported the post to administrators. School counselors will be available for students who need to talk, and student mental health support specialists were available in all of the district’s secondary schools.
About a year ago, police investigated two threats directed toward students of color in the nearby Marysville School District.
Last summer, Lake Stevens resident Benjamin Richey, 20, was charged with a hate crime. Richey allegedly used a friend’s Snapchat account to post a picture of himself holding a silver BB gun with the caption, “killing minorities soon.”
Richey, a former Marysville School District student, had previously been investigated for threats of violence, as well as hurling racial slurs at people of color. He’s awaiting trial.
And in a December 2020 incident, two students reportedly talked during an online class about killing specific Black students.
At a Marysville School Board meeting last week, students said schools’ responses to racism shouldn’t just focus on the perpetrator.
Gianna Frank, a Marysville Pilchuck High School student, said that after students made racist death threats toward her, she suffered physically.
“It comes in your body in different ways,” she said. “You might just tuck it under you but eventually it’s going to show up whether it’s you crying about it, whether it shows up in your body a different way. But I just think that students who say this stuff should really listen to the kids that are affected and hurt.”
Often after racist actions, she said, “we’re all focused on the kid who did this.”
“But what about the kid who was affected?” Frank said. “What about the student who was left with their thoughts, left with all the hate and backlash that they received from it? What about that student?”
Isabella Breda: 425-339-3192; isabella.breda@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @BredaIsabella.
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