Over 1,000 students walked out of Missouri's Parkway Central High School to protest racist graffiti scrawled on their bathroom walls last month. However, the graffiti turned out to be a hoax.
According to Parkway Superintendent Keith Marty, slurs were scrawled on bathroom walls at both Parkway Central and North high schools.
ICYMI: Several hundred students walked out of Parkway Central High School in protest on Thursday morning, one day after racist graffiti was found in bathrooms in two schools. https://t.co/XFg7jynI1k
To protest the "hate," students cussed out administrators and staff, walked out of classes, cried, and made a list of demands for change.
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch (@stltoday) September 25, 2021
After finding out that the hateful messages were written by a black student, Marty said that it “does not diminish the hurt it caused or the negative impact it has on our entire community.”
“We cannot presume the reasons a student would do this and it will be important to understand why this happened as we move forward,” Marty continued, according to a report from STL Today.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports, "Brittanee Jackson, a 17-year-old senior at Parkway Central who participated in the walkout, called the revelations that a Black student had written the messages 'embarrassing,' but said in an interview Tuesday with the Post-Dispatch that it did not diminish the student protesters’ anti-racism message." Editor's Notes: A previous version of this article referred to the hoax as an "as usual" occurrence. This phrase constitutes editorializing and has been removed from the present version. "The incident marked the second time in recent years that a student of color was caught writing racist graffiti in a Parkway high school. In 2017, a nonwhite student admitted to writing 'White lives matter' followed by a racial slur in a Parkway Central bathroom," the report continued.
"Earlier this year, two 18-year-olds, one of whom was Black, were charged with causing property damage after spray-painting racist graffiti on the outside of Kirkwood High School and Nipher and North Kirkwood middle schools. A juvenile was also referred to St. Louis Family Court."
