WATCH: Racist Video Shows White Kids In Detroit Suburb Advocating For A Return To Slavery


A group of white students at Grosse Pointe South High School in Grosse Pointe Farms, a cushy suburb of Detroit, Michigan, thought they’d have a bit of fun over the Memorial Day Weekend. According to New York Daily News, they posted a racist video on social media. In the video, they joked about what they would do if they were elected president in 2040. They ran a list that included re-implementing slavery, branding blacks, and selling them back to Africa. What the absolute hell?

Grosse Pointe South Kids Reprimanded For Earlier Acts Of Racism

Racist remarks by kids are often blown off as kids just being kids, without taking into account how incredibly hurtful and dangerous these types of jokes are. I’ll add my two cents here: kids learn that type of language and behavior from adults in their lives, namely, their parents.

A similar incident happened earlier this year with students from the same high school. In March, the Detroit Free Press reported that four white students took to Instagram with racial slurs written on their bodies. In this case, two of the students were disciplined with suspension for threatening the students who reported the incident.

Systematic Racism Is Alive And Well, Kids Feed Off Of It

We can talk all day about kids not really understanding that this type of behavior is unacceptable. When repercussions happen, and they will if this continues, it’s going to get real ugly, real fast.

From where I sit, I see a huge discrepancy in the way discipline is handled between black and white kids.

I’m also assured that comments on this article will accuse me of race-baiting. They’re encouraged to just stop and let’s call it what it is. This is not to say that all white people support racist acts. They don’t. However, systematic racism makes it easier for people to turn their heads away and act like these incidents are just for fun.

Double Standards Noted, Get Your House In Order

Take into consideration how guns ownership is viewed by many Americans. If a black kid has a toy gun police view it as the real thing. When white kids have guns they’re All-American and they’ve learned to handle that gun from their Dad. It’s acceptable because the parental units believe they have “the right” to bear arms in order to protect their loved ones.

What really sticks out is the ongoing apathy of many white Americans who think that these glaring double standards are okay. Black people know that they aren’t and that will be treated differently under the law. By high school, teenagers have a sense of what is acceptable in society and what isn’t.

As a parent, I not only question the double standard but how unsafe racism makes life for black kids. They have to learn early in life that post-racial America is a made up construct that doesn’t exist if you are black.

Racist Views of Teens Likely To Produce Racist Hate-Filled Adults

Grosse Pointe is a northern suburb that may as well be in the deep south during Jim Crow years, The adage, “out of the mouths of babes” is believable when words spew from the mouths of kids who haven’t been taught any better.

Unless a whole lot of things change these high school kids who thought they were being funny and cool, will carry racists views into adulthood. Why wouldn’t they? They’re cowards who wouldn’t dare tip a toe past Eight Mile Road into Detroit unless they are with a group of white people. Even then, they’re likely to keep their heads low unless a sporting event is going on in Detroit proper.

In those instances, they find and follow the most unruly whites who are full of beer from the game. They will keep in step while engaging in tearing up downtown before getting back into their cars and heading back across Eight Mile. Back in bubble worlds, they feel safe enough to once again be racists behind computer keyboards.

Featured Image: Instagram/anezaballa

C. Imani Williams is a human rights and social justice activist. She writes to empower and give voice to those silenced through systematic oppression. Her work has appeared in Between the Lines, Michigan Citizen, Tucson Weekly, Harlem Times, Dope Magazine and various news and popular culture blogs. Follow the unapologetically black political culture critique @ https://twitter.com/Imaniwms and https://www.facebook.com/You-Have-The-Right-540358412796352/?fref=ts