Parents in California are expressing outrage towards a school district after four teenage girls were seen in a TikTok video wearing blackface last month.
While the girls faced disciplinary actions, parents argue this behavior is symptomatic of a larger issue within the Santa Barbara Unified School District.
During a school board meeting on Tuesday night, parents gathered with signs condemning racism. Messages included, “Don’t be a bystander, stop ignoring racism,” and questioned, “What was the reason it took two weeks and some to notify parents?” They pointed out that “racism doesn’t disappear when it’s swept under the rug.”
Many of the signs were part of a larger protest advocating for the safety of black students and calling for the district to take stronger action.
The TikTok video features the girls imitating an AI-generated image of four young black boys in varied poses, captioned “Meet the gc🥷🥷🥷🥷🥷🥷🥷…”—a ninja emoji that has been associated with the N-word.
San Marcos High School Principal Dare Holdren acknowledged that the students portrayed blackface and mentioned that consequences were put in place for their actions.
Some parents expressed frustration over the delay in informing them about the incident.
“Parents deserve to know,” stated Leticia Forney Resch, an executive director for Healing Justice Santa Barbara, who criticized the school for taking too long to act. “They had pictures and images going out to students for a week-and-a-half… Y’all didn’t do your job.”
The girls filmed the video in an African American studies classroom, and the teacher, Abel Gonzalez, voiced his anger about the ongoing racism in the school environment. “When black students are harmed, every student is harmed,” he noted, emphasizing that black and brown students are feeling hurt and are trying to heal.
This is not the first occurrence of racism affecting the district. Reports mention a previous incident where a substitute teacher read a racial slur aloud during class even after warnings to refrain from doing so.
A parent remarked that the district has witnessed a noticeable escalation of racist behavior. “When a nation refuses to confront institutional and structural racism, the harm does not stay contained, it escalates,” Charlotte Gullap-Moore said, observing that the Santa Barbara Unified School District has allowed this escalation to take root.
The local NAACP has criticized the school for its lack of established protocols to manage incidents of racism effectively. The concerns center around the need for clear guidance for principals and accessible information for parents and students regarding the district’s handling of such cases.
Teachers agree that the only way to address these issues is through decisive action. “Doing nothing tells this community that anti-Black bias and racism is woven into the fabric of Santa Barbara schools,” one educator remarked, calling for the district to genuinely demonstrate its commitment to black students.
