Is Race a Factor with the Punishment of These High School Students?

Controversy has erupted in Lehigh Acres, Florida after a video surfaced online of high school basketball players rapping explicit and sexually suggestive lyrics. Parents of the students and people in the community are rallying behind the students after a decision was made for the players to sit out the rest of the season, including yesterday’s district semi-final game.

Wink News has the story below.

Here’s what one of the parents had to say about the punishment.

They don’t get in trouble outside of school nor do they get in trouble inside of school and this one incident come and you just take it overboard,” said Desiree McDonald, who has two sons suspended. “They made a mistake as a child. They’re not adults. And yes they do have to learn from their mistakes but I feel like they’ve learned from the mistake that they made and I don’t feel like either one of those kids would do that again.”

An even bigger problem for some of the students is that it may cost them college scholarships due to them sitting out games that potential scouts could be at.

Here’s the lesson for kids and for some adults. Social media can really come back to bite people in their asses. Do I think the punishment fit the “crime” here? No. I could see maybe a one game suspension, but I think for the rest of the season is a bit harsh.

The problem for the kids is that according to the school handbook, “loss of eligibility for extracurricular activities” and “out of school suspension” are classified as Level II corrective actions. So I get where the school is coming from as well, but I think that the school could’ve used their own judgement to realize that the boys made a mistake and shouldn’t have to have their lives ruined for a minor mistake.

The bigger question that I throw out to all of you is (and I can already hear the deniers in my head now) is if these students were white, what would the punishment be from the school? Would the school have been as outraged?

How many times when you were younger (if a fan of hip-hop) did you rap along to hip-hop songs with the sexually explicit lyrics? I know for myself and the people I hung around did it all the time. I loved rap. What these students did wasn’t anything that kids of the past haven’t done, they just put it out on social media.

I pose the race question because despite what people like Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and their supporters think, we as a society still have many inequalities that need to be addressed. There are race issues that are beneath the surface for White America, while some in Black America live through discrimination because of skin color everyday.

Just take the reaction Cam Newton gets for dancing, while someone like Travis Kelce gets the complete opposite reaction for essentially doing the same thing. America has made some progress over the years, but more work needs to be done and I truly believe that if these students were white, the reaction from the school would be way less severe.