[ad_1]
A Wisconsin school district announced that it was investigating the photo of a large group of high school male students giving what looks like Sieg Heil, a salute greeted by the Nazi victory.
Baraboo's superintendent, Lori Mueller, told Wisconsin Public Radio and the Associated Press that she had learned of the photo's existence Monday after being broadcast on social media. The photo of students from Baraboo High School would have been taken last spring.
WPR and AP say the school district and Baraboo police are investigating.
The photo appears just two weeks after an armed assailant entered a Pittsburgh synagogue and killed 11 people in the worst attack on Jews in US history.
"The Baraboo School District is a hate-free environment where all people, regardless of race, color, religion, creed, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender National origin or descent, are respected and celebrated, "said Mueller in a statement.
The Baraboo School District says that the photo was not taken on school grounds or at a school sponsored event. Photographer Pete Gust hosted the photo on a page of his website called "BHS Prom Pic".
On Tuesday, the district sent a letter to the students' parents informing them of the photo and the "extremely inappropriate gestures" of the students.
"If the gesture is what it seems to be, the district will pursue all available and appropriate actions, including legal, to solve this problem," the letter says.
As reported by WPR,
Morgan Springer graduated from Baraboo High School in 2018 and stated that she was present when the photo was taken, adding that the photographer had asked the boys to "give some sort of" Yeah! " symbol "but she did not believe that the photographer said that they should do the Nazi salute.
"About 99% of the guys have all started the Nazi salute," Springer writes in an email to WPR. "I personally knew some of the students, who are currently seniors at BHS and who did not do it … They were all shocked that this was happening."
"Even when they did and pictures were taken, no one tried to stop them," added Springer. "The parents and even the professional photographer kept taking the picture and even laughing because they were looking at her like a joke and even that they were saying," Oh, those stupid kids. ""
A mother of a student from Baraboo High School told WPR that this gesture meant something else: it's a common gesture during Friday night football games, she said.
A student in the front row of the group did what appears to be a "white power" gesture.
Gust deleted the photo from his website and replaced it with a message stating that the photo had been deleted "due to the malicious behavior of some members of the company".
"I sincerely apologize to anyone who has been hurt," he writes.
Baraboo, located about 160 km northwest of Milwaukee, is a predominantly white city with 93 percent of its residents identifying as "only white," according to the US Census Bureau. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, more than 85% of the 992 school students in the 2015-2016 school year were Caucasian.
There are no synagogues in Baraboo and a local affiliate of ABC reports that a week before the mid-term elections, "the inhabitants of the region have received white nationalist propaganda in their mailboxes ".
"The one-page leaflets with the title" White Lives Matter "are linked to websites defending nationalistic and anti-Semitic views," ABC said.
Journalist Jules Suzdaltsev, who tweeted the picture early Monday morning, said he spoke to many current and former students throughout the day.
"Almost all stories evoke the same basic theme: the community as a whole has a lot of casual and pleasant racism, homophobia and transphobia that is accepted as part of life," he said. tweeted.
"We must explain what is the danger of the rise of a hateful ideology," said the Mauseum of Auschwitz, which retains the site of the former Nazi concentration and extermination camp d & # 39; Auschwitz tweeted. "Auschwitz and its gas chambers were at the end of the long process of normalization and accommodation of hatred."
Wisconsin's elected governor, Democrat Tony Evers, told WPR and AP on Monday that the students' actions had "no place in Wisconsin".
"Intolerance and fanaticism should never be tolerated, neither in our schools nor elsewhere," said the governor-elect, stating that he would keep in touch with school officials.
[ad_2]
Source link
