LETTER to the editor

My name’s Remelia Hubbard and I’m a Senior here at Monarch. After reading the recent article in the last issue of The Mix, I felt I needed to write this. The incident of blackface that occurred at our school has hurt me and many other Black students. Seeing other students laugh and joke around while having their faces painted black disgusted me. It left me feeling unsafe around other students at my school and had me crying once I saw photos of the incident. I keep hearing people say that we don’t know their intentions. Their intentions don’t matter. The actions of the students matter and their actions were racist. Their actions hurt people and caused harm to our community at Monarch. Other Black students and I have to walk around the halls every day knowing that these students are walking around with us, but the students who did it get away essentially scot-free. These students should have been properly punished, but they weren’t. They caused harm and did a racist act and they should face more consequences for that than getting a “talking to”. Allowing these students to get away with this puts white students’ futures above the mental well-being of students of color.

In my opinion, our administration handled this situation poorly. They should have spoken out about the incident. They send out emails about the smallest things like there being a bobcat or coyote near the school. They could have easily sent out an email saying that there was an incident at our school and that they stand against racism, but they didn’t. I even encouraged them to do so and so did other students that I know. The administration said that they tried to handle the situation quickly and in the classes that were affected, however, people not in the classroom were also affected. As soon as the pictures and videos were sent out, this incident moved from a classroom issue to a school issue. Every Black student that saw these photos or heard about the incident has been affected in some way. I believe that the article that was previously written in The Mix also handled the incident poorly. I have discussed their perspective with them, as the people who wrote the article, and understand why they did what they did, however, I still disagree with it. The friend of the perpetrators should not have had a platform in any way. This student was clearly not Black and was therefore not affected. He even fell into the common microaggression of excusing racism by claiming his Black friends don’t care. He had no right to have a voice on this issue and his words should have never been published. I wrote this to speak out about how this has affected Black students and how I feel this situation was improperly handled. None of the adults or students that have dealt with the aftermath of the blackface incident have taken it seriously enough including our administration. I hope reading this has led you to a better understanding of a Black perspective on this blackface incident and has you thinking more about students of color at our school as you move forward. We are a very small portion of the school, but our physical health, mental health, and overall well-being are just as important as white students and I hope the students and administration at our school will start to act like it.

– Remelia Hubbard ‘23