Schoolboys suspended over ‘KKK outfits’ say ‘we were dressed as ghosts’
Pupils at a high school in Florida have been suspended after coming to lessons wearing what have been described as ‘Ku Klux Klan costumes.’
Students had been invited to wear costumes as part of Wiregrass Ranch High School’s ‘spirit week’ celebrations.
Photos shared on social media showed the three boys were wearing white hoods with eyeholes. They are understood to have told staff their outfits were ghost costumes.
“Usually ghosts don’t have pointed hats,” school Superintendent Kurt Browning told WFLA, adding: “The race relations and everything else going on across our country, the last thing we need to do is have any students dressed up, regardless of race, dressed up in that kind of costume.”
“This is not something that should be representative of the school. I live in this neighborhood. I don’t deal with that kind of bigotry where I live,” staff member Brandon Tanner told ABC Action News.
Parent Denico Green, who has a 16-year-old son at the school, told reporters: “If our kids are bringing this type of stuff to school, then we need to figure out where it’s coming from and try to hit it on the head and try to prevent this from continuously happening.”
His wife Dee Green added: “Since our kids kneeled at the football game last week, there’s been a lot of racial tension in the community. Never would I have expected that students, or even families, would have taken it as far as wearing Ku Klux Klan paraphernalia to the school.”
In recent weeks a number of sportsmen and women have taken to kneeling rather than standing as the national anthem plays before games, in silent demonstration against racial injustice and police brutality.
The three boys, who were of Hispanic and Middle Eastern descent, were "disciplined in accordance with our code of conduct," school officials told the Daily News.
According to reports they were each suspended for three days.