Black Athlete at West Virginia High School Finds Picture of Himself in a Noose Before Game

I’m often skeptical when I hear people say shit like “We just need to let the old people die out, then racism will be a thing of the past.” Mainly because those racists have kids. Kids who often turn around and do things like this.

NBC News reports that Jace Colucci, a 17-year-old student and basketball player for Westside High School in Clear Fork, West Virgina, found a drawing of a stick figure with a noose around its neck and his name on it before a game last Friday. The team was playing at Wyoming West High where the drawing was found posted to a bulletin board. The Superintendent of Wyoming County Schools, Diedre Cline, issued a statement saying the drawing is under investigation and that the police have been notified. She stated that if the prosecutor finds the incident to be a hate crime the district will “support that finding and take any appropriate action.”

Unfortunately, this is not the first time something like this has happened to Collucci, who happens to be the only black player on his school’s basketball team. In February 2019 a Snapchat video surfaced that depicted a group of Wyoming East High School students chanting “hang Jace, hang Jace.” Sean Cook, an attorney for the family, is exploring what options they have under federal and state law.

It’s really sad this young man has to go through this and from his peers no less. No one is thinking that West Virginia is a beacon of progress but incidents like this undercut any notion that racism will go away once a few older generations die off. Hopefully Jace can get through his senior of school with no further incident.