by Miguel Louis
A month ago, local news flooded with reports of a racist incident in Olympia area schools. During a game between River Ridge, in Lacey, and Capital High School, on the Westside of Olympia, a white student from Capital chanted at a black student from the rival school. He called him a monkey and mimicked animal noises.
Because this event drew national attention, the school responded quickly by suspending the racist student for three days. He did not return to campus because he was being challenged by his fellow students, who would not accept his disgusting racism in public.
The students in North Thurston Public Schools (NTPS) waited to see how the board and county would respond. Students were upset by Capital High School’s treatment of the incident. According to many students in the area, the young man should have been expelled from the beginning. Furthermore, this behavior from the school has been standard—a slap on the wrist for reported instances of racist bullying and rape.
It is due to this culture in the school administration, the lack of protection for students, that the youth at River Ridge High School went on strike,
Led by the Black Student Union, the student body quietly left their classrooms at the end of January and protested outside the school.
Originally they faced immediate sanctions from the administration. Students were denied entry into the school to use facilities. During the height of winter, they were not allowed to warm up inside.
The community came together to support students and provided food and hand warmers to keep them going. They rallied with speeches, marching around the school, and standing up for their rights. Each day they held space with a list of actions. When the administration complained that they were too loud and disruptive, they organized a chain around the school of students linking arms in silence.
The next week, two events would create chaos in the protests.
First, a parent of a child at RRHS arrived on campus to confront the kids legally expressing their rights. He circled the parking lot at first, telling the kids that “there’s going to be a civil war. Is that you want? There will be blood”. He eventually got out and made his way to the field, where student activists gathered. He filmed the students while yelling at them, saying that they should go back inside.
Because he was escalating and seemed aggressive, a black father stepped in his way to tell him he needed to leave the school property. The agitator screamed, “See, this is why we don’t like y’all.” Clearly a racist comment. Eventually, the black father slapped the phone out of his hand. At that point, the police were called to escort the man off of the grounds. He refused to leave and was officially trespassed and talked to by Lacey Police. He was seen crying, demanding that the black father be arrested for slapping his phone. As if he were the victim after trying to start a fight with high school children. The students were seen to be chanting “Black Lives Matter” and other chants to drown out his racism.
The next day, Thursday, February 3rd, was terrifying. A student was reported to be making threats to the student body that he was armed and willing to shoot up the protest. The administration was told about the issue, but they did nothing. What unfolded next was chaos.
Watching the videos seems surreal. Students ran across the campus, trying to find shelter. Black Student Union leaders eventually corralled the crowd, and after Lacey Police was called again, the school went into lockdown, and class ended early.
At the start of the next week, I paid a visit to the school to interview student activists for the Journal. As we showed up, we were approached by members of the administration. King 5 news was recording a set of interviews, and they took issue with the fact that as we walked up, we entered the camera’s field of vision while one of my friends wore an Anti-Nazi patch. We complied and walked onto the property.
After checking in with a few friends, we signed in and received our visitor passes. I took some photos of the signs the students made. Then ten minutes later, a friend approached me, telling me that the administration had asked me to leave. They recognized me as a left-wing journalist and did not like my friend’s patch that read: Nazi Punks Fuck Off, with a crossed-over Swastika.
We left without issue, and my friend walked us to our car, letting us know that the parents and the students had no problem with our presence and desire to conduct interviews. The administration was trying to cover up the fact that Antifascists would support the youth at River Ridge High School.
When I arrived, a woman approached us to show us the official letter from NTPS. It stated that the protests were disruptive and needed to be stopped. They agreed to meet most of their demands. But they added a caveat.
Students were unhappy that NTPS proposed a new policy that in all cases of sexual violence, the police would be involved. The volunteer showing me the letter stressed how this would deter students from reporting instances of rape due to their fear of having the police involved and fears of retaliation from the perpetrator.
Their demands were simple and well written. They called on the administration of the public school system to rewrite their policies to take a harsher stance against racism and rape culture. They asked for two weeks off, where the student body could be involved in creating a new culture and policies at River Ridge High School.
The day I attended the protest, the Black Student Union met with the administration to discuss an end to the strike. Their numbers were a lot smaller as many kids were afraid due to the right-wing escalation of violence against student activists.
It took them a couple of days, but eventually, the students agreed to return to class on limited conditions. They informed the principal and the teachers that they would give NTPS one to two weeks to figure out the situation and make the necessary changes.
There were a lot of mixed feelings. Many student activists feared returning to class due to retaliation from teachers or bullying by their classmates. The school had promised that they would be allowed to transfer out of courses that they felt unsafe in and that they would be given ample time to catch up with course work.
By the end of the first day back, the students announced that because the administration failed to do their part to meet the demands, the students would return to strike the following Monday.
Since that declaration, the students are back to their work changing the culture of schools in Thurston County. Through striking, they are demanding a new approach to incidents of rape and racism.
Their demands can be found on the RRHS BSU Social media. The document is powerful and precise in what the students need to live in safe and healthy schools.
They write, “Students aren’t just learning, Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetics. There is a 4th and 5th R that are silent. NTPS needs to make a commitment to end Racism and Rape culture in schooling”.
