Racist messages written in bathroom at Parkway Central HS

By KMOV.COM STAFF

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    CHESTERFIELD, Mo (KMOV) — A St. Louis County school is investigating after racist messages were written all over a bathroom’s walls.

The graffiti was found inside a boys bathroom at Parkway Central High School Wednesday afternoon around 1:30 p.m.

“I was shocked, but at the same time honestly I wasn’t,” Brittanee Jackson said.

Jackson’s a senior at Parkway Central. She says this isn’t her first time seeing racially targeted slurs in her school.

“Freshman year there was a video with racial slurs being said. Sophomore year, there was a meme posted during school about what happened with the video. Junior year there was a video with a girl who had profanity written on her stomach and now this,” Jackson said.

The video, taken from a student, shows slurs and hateful words written on the walls and stalls of a boy’s restroom. News 4 is choosing not to repeat any of the slurs because the words are so demeaning.

“It’s pretty like degrading in a way,” Arie McGuire said.

McGuire, also a senior at Central, transferred to the school last year. She says coming to Central has been a huge change for her personally.

“It was kind of like a culture shock to me because before I went to a predominantly black school, and now coming here and dealing with this, yeah it’s crazy,” McGuire explained.

Shortly after the discovery of the graffiti, Parkway Central Principal Tim McCarthy addressed it over a loudspeaker.

“As your building principal, these actions which degrade individual’s human dignity have no place in school. They have no place at Central High and are antithetical to our core values of respect, integrity and caring,” McCarthy said in part.

McCarthy also sent a note home to parents and students. Part of that note is below:

Regretfully, I am sending this email to share with you information regarding a serious incident at Central High this afternoon: racist hate speech was written on bathroom walls at school. This act is an affront to the core values of our community and a serious violation of our discipline code. Please know that we take this offense seriously and will work with district officials to investigate the incident and hold anyone involved accountable for their actions.

Some students say administrators aren’t doing enough to curb what they call constant racism.

“It’s kind of embarrassing because you know, you have other schools looking at you like the racist school, like that’s the school you’d never want to go to because stuff like that actually happens to the students that attend our school,” Xaviana Payne said.

Payne, also a senior at Central, says she’s noticed a divide between white and Black students at the school. After Wednesday’s incident, students are now sending emails to board members asking for an update to the district’s discrimination policy.

“Stuff like that needs to be talked about in class especially instead of just pushing it under the rug,” Payne said.

News 4 asked for an interview with the district’s superintendent and Central’s principal. We’re told neither were available for an interview. After talking with students Wednesday afternoon, we’ve taken their concerns back to administrators and have requested another interview.

Thursday morning, Parkway Central students are planning a walk-out during class to stand in solidarity with their fellow classmates.

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