Reflections on recent incidents at Alta High School from an Alta alumnus

Alta High School has received a lot of attention recently for the acts of racism carried out by a student during a school spirit assembly. I was not at the assembly, did not see what happened, and so won't take it upon myself to comment upon the assembly itself, but rather on some of the fallout that has resulted, informed by my own experience as a white upper/middle class boy who grew up in the racially-segregated enclave of east side Sandy, Utah.
Not surprisingly, one of the most common responses to the charges of racism leveled against the Alta High student who paraded through the gymnasium wearing a white pillow case over his head in the fashion of a KKK hood, is that his actions were just an ill-informed joke, nothing to take offense at. "Yes," many of his defenders argue, "it was a bad decision, but hey, he's just a kid and he made a bad decision, so just let it go. It's really not that big of a deal." The folks who make this argument charge Larz, the young bi-racial man who posted a blog critical of his classmate's actions and brought it to the attention of the school administration, with making a mountain out of a molehill. In a classic case of blaming the victim, they blame Larz for taking this all too seriously and making it into a much bigger deal than it really is.

In order to put the actions of the Alta student who wore the hood in context and those who have defended his actions, let me tell a story about my own youth. When I was 13-14 years old I hung around with a group of boys who were very creative with their use of language, and specifically putting standard words to new uses. This largely served the function of creating a tight social network of those who were "in," i.e. those who understood the new usages of the word and could engage in the slang dialogue of the group. This language game took a decidedly ugly and racist turn after the TV mini-series Roots, based on Alex Haley's novel of the same name, aired on network TV, however. Not long after Roots aired, this group of young men with whom i associated, starting using the name of the main protagonist in the story, Kunta Kinte, as an insult, as in, "shut up you stupid Kunta Kinte!" Let me clarify, this was primarily used in my circle of friends as we jested and joked with each other. There were no African-American families or people in our community to actually use this with, and i'm confident we actually knew better than to use this language in their presence, but it became a part of our regular jargon. It wasn't limited to using Kunta Kinte as an epithet, however, we soon took it another step and started usually other racial slurs to belittle each other. Terms such as "jungle bunny," "spear chucker," "cotton picker," and "banana lips," were combined with Kunta Kinte as we insulted each other or other things we wanted to belittle. We became especially adept at using them in combination, e.g. "you're such a banana-lipped, spear chucking, jungle bunny!"
Of course i never used this language in my home or around my parents, but only with my group of friends. But it wasn't long before we did become more public in our use of this racist language. Most of us belonged to the scout troop associated with our local LDS congregation. Our scout troop (about 20 young men) was divided further into smaller "patrols" of 4-6 boys. Each patrol was assigned to pick a name for the patrol and design a patrol flag. So what did we decide to call out patrol? The "Kunta Kintes" of course. And how did we design our flag? We cut a white sheet into a nice, square, and then proceeded to draw a caricature of a black man in the middle of the flag, complete with oversized lips, large ears, and a big, flat nose. What is perhaps most startling, but not surprising in light of the current debate that has ensued since the Alta Spirit Assembly, is that as we went public with this flag and our new "patrol" name, not a single adult, or anyone for that matter, said a word about it. My friend's mom, at whose house we designed and made the flag, said nothing about it. Our scout master said nothing about it. In fact no one, at any scouting event or church where we paraded our new flag, said a word about it.
Now let me clarify, i knew that what we were doing was racist, but i went along with it. I laughed with the rest of the guys and used the same language when i wanted to insult them or engage in our juvenile banter. But i knew it was wrong. The fact, however, that not a single adult said anything to us gave us tacit approval for our actions. Their silence gave us the leeway to continue with the ugly words and hateful stereotypes and insults that we threw around casually in our everyday conversation, that we even proudly carried as a mascot in our scouting activities.
It appears now that the same type of silent and tacit approval of this type of activity has been going on at Alta for some time. But now that a courageous young man of color has called it out, we're seeing another level of resistance being raised by the primarily white community to defend the racist actions of the young men who have been protected by that very white privilege enough that they can claim they didn't see anything wrong with wearing a white hood cut from a pillow case and shouting "white power" at a spirit assembly. The silence has ended, but instead of seeing a critical introspection about how our actions just might hurt and offend others and bring up a violent past, we're hearing a chorus of white privilege claiming that it's not that big of a deal, it was just a joke that went wrong. It was not just a joke that went wrong, however, it was a decision, made by the young student at Alta, situated in a historical context of violence and intimidation, to take the very symbol of that violence and intimidation and wear it before his peers at a school-wide function. If he truly was ignorant of the historical context of his actions then shame on Alta High and his parents for failing to teach him, but this was a racist act, and cannot simply be dismissed as a bad decision.
Given the district's investigation of Alta, it appears that this was not an isolated event, but rather is just one act in a series of racially hostile and aggressive actions that have happened at Alta.
Rather than blaming Larz for making a big deal out of nothing, i hope we, and by we i am specifically referring to the majority white community that attends and has attended Alta high, can take a critical look at our actions and our words and recognize that what we sometimes see as just a joke, is actually representative of a very painful and violent past and present for those who do not share our white privilege.

Dr. Matt Bradley
Alta High '88