Ain’t Nothing Funny: Nassau County School District Says Video of White Students Using the N-Word, Wearing White Hood Was Meant to Be a ‘Joke’

While some kids get their first job or spend weeks from home at sleep away camp during the summers, others make videos of themselves with a friend playing in a white hood and using the N-word.

Oh, that’s not a regular summer activity where you’re from? Same, but according to News 4 Jax , two white students from Yulee High School in Nassau County, Fla., made a video doing just that before their return to school this fall.

The school board held a meeting on Thursday at which parents expressed concerns over the students not being disciplined.

News 4 reports that the video was shared on social media last week by one of their classmates to a group of Black students and it sparked a “physical altercation.”

Here is what’s in the video according to News 4 from last week:

A clip that has been widely shared on social media shows two young, white boys using racial slurs — one of them is seen wearing a white cloth hood.

“Hold on, you see that?” one of the boys said in the video, pointing straight to the camera. “It’s a n****r.”

According to multiple parents who provided the video to News4Jax, the clip had been sent to a group of Black students at Yulee High School in Nassau County by one of their classmates.

A spokesperson for the Nassau County School District told News4Jax that the student who sent the video via SnapChat, was not one of the two students who appeared in it.

According to Action News Jax, all the children involved in the altercation, including the one who shared the video, were suspended but not the two students in the video. Parents raised concerns over why the children in the alarmingly racist video weren’t disciplined as well.

Two of the students suspended were on the school’s football team. Their teammates wanted to show support by sitting out last Friday’s game, News 4 reports, but Principal Yvon Joinville said that any player who sits out will forfeit the rest of their football season.

“There’s been in our view, from the parents that I have spoken with, inconsistencies in the response, the communication to our kids, to me, suboptimal,” said Matthew Ricks, a concerned parent, according to News 4. “I don’t understand why we haven’t worked better together to get through this and why it takes a group of parents yelling, literally me personally yelling and crying in district offices to get a response.”

Nassau County School District Assistant Superintendent Mark Durham said that the video was filmed over the summer and not meant to be widely shared. Apparently, it was supposed to only remain as a joke amongst a “group of friends.”

More from News 4:

Durham said that the district had no authority to punish students for behavior outside of school.

“While schools do have jurisdiction to discipline students for their on-line, off campus behavior under certain circumstances, this case did not meet the criteria,” Durham said. “While the school and district find this type of joke cruel and abhorrent and would discipline the students if legally permissible, the circumstances of this case just don’t allow it. However, the student who sent the video to several, specific students does meet the criteria necessary to punish a student for their on-line behavior. The student was assigned discipline consistent with the district’s code of conduct.”

The school is currently investigating whether or not any discipline can be done in this case, Action News Jax notes.

“There is a false idea that racism is limited to name calling and physical violence, but its so much more than that,” said Christina Guerrier, another parent, according to News 4. “The initial response from school administrators showed us that covert racism in the spotlight.”