Citizens sound off on threats to Black SCW students

Parents, Middlesex school officials mull menacing online posts; sheriff’s office is probing

Parents, grandparents and concerned citizens attended the Middlesex County School Board’s special called meeting on Monday to address racial threats on social media that allegedly occurred two weeks ago toward Black students at St. Clare Walker Middle School.

Parent Michael Hammond addressed the board and spoke of language used on social media, which resulted in a Middlesex County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) investigation.

“I consider it a threat as a Black person when someone white writes on social media, ‘Black people should be hung from trees.’” He said it was just one of several racial threats coming across social media and directed towards St. Clare Walker Middle School Black students.

“This is a threat and so many times these things are swept under the rug, as if they are meaningless.”

Middlesex chapter president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Dawn Moore said, “It seems to be an ongoing issue where certain behaviors are dismissed depending on who the student is.

“We (NAACP) have been called about many issues where the Black student was already suspended and the white student was not disciplined or received little to no discipline at all,” she said.

“If this was a Black student (under investigation) I will say it again, he or she would have been suspended while the investigation went on,” she said. “The school’s policy is a no tolerance policy so that brings us to the question, when is a threat, a threat?”

“When an issue comes to the attention of the school nothing should be dismissed,” she said. “We are seeing it across the United States, students are not making the best decisions. You do not know from one day to the next what you will see on television. We do not need a replay of any of the school shootings here in Middlesex. We always say, ‘it won’t happen to me.’ With the culture we live in that cannot be said today.”

Vincent Carter said that he questioned the school system’s response that the racial threats were of no concern. “If there was no concern over the social media comments, why is there an (MCSO) investigation at all?” he said. “If there is an investigation, it tells me there should be concern.”

“It seems that we are finding ourselves in the current plague of systemic racism,” she said. “The people in the system that have the power do not see it, but it has become more apparent to the people on the outside looking in.”

Several parents voiced concerns that their children were afraid to attend school.

Board member Claudia Soucek said the school board has heard valid concerns from everyone who spoke. “We need to be on the watch for any type of situation that makes our children afraid to go to school,” she said. “No one can argue that our children need to feel safe in school.”