A group of teenagers reenacted George Floyd’s last moments through blackface and another student kneeling on the other just like convicted ex-police officer, Derek Chauvin.
The image is taken place in Mead High School, a high school institution located in Colorado where the teenagers attend.
There is a student who pretends to be George Floyd, using blackface to show his “character” while another kneels in the same position that Chauvin was in when he knelt on Floyd for nine minutes.
The third teenager was in charge of taking the photo, captioning their snap as “bye bye senoirs.” Their image had spread through the use of social media, and was shown on a Change.
org petition to address the situation of racism happening in the picture. It is not clear as to when the picture was taken, but protests had started outside of the school once the photo spread.
People demanded to end racism at the campus, the petition has at least 8,000 signatures as of Saturday morning.
Dozens of students have also staged a walkout last Friday in order to protest over the photo, hoping that the students’ identities are revealed so that they can face expulsion.
Many of the protestors carried Black Lives Matter signs while accusing the school officials of not taking proper action, hoping that they will discipline the students for even taking the racial image. It is said that the students have all been charged with five days of suspension.
Sarah Steere, a 16-year-old sophomore who participated in the protest, commented that she wasn’t “surprised” at the photo.
She had contributed in screenshotting the photo while sending it to their school principal. She was “disgusted, embarrassed, but wasn’t surprised. I want to see it come from the parents first because they’re teaching their kids to act like this.
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The petition that was posted on Change.org has a biography that states: “It’s unbelievable that there are still people acting so immature towards racism. Everyone in our school represents Mead and having such students re-created a humiliating death, as they dishonor themselves is sad.”
The principal of Mead High School, Rachael Ayers, has sent out a message to the parents to show that they are aware of the incident, taking this “type of conduct very seriously and have begun an investigation into the matter.”
They are asking for students to provide proof and process their feelings, trying to provide support for those who have been affected by the photo.