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A racist Snapchat video circulating online shows white Alabama high school students discussing the Holocaust, how to “get rid of black people and Jews” and putting black people in concentration camps.
In the video, the teenagers appear to be drinking alcohol off-campus and laughing as they discuss the Holocaust. One teenager laughingly remarks that without the concentration camps, “Jews would run the world.”
One boy said: "F**k n****rs, f**k Jews" - and he and the others repeatedly used the n-word, a racial slur against black people.
The girl in the video responds by saying “Jews are fine because they’re white. We just need the n****rs gone.”
In the shocking clip, a third young man talks disparagingly about the Holocaust, which killed more than 6.6 million Jews. He said:
If the Holocaust never happened, Jews would be running the world.
His words were received by laughter, and one student said they should put black people "in concentration camps and just bomb them".
The girl goes on to say that “we run n****rs. They rap music and we pay them for that.”
The 45-second clip was widely condemned on social media, and the teenagers – and their parents – are being criticised for the comments they made about genocide.
Tara Dowdell, a black entrepreneur refused to repost the video, which she called "racist and antisemitic".
Not going to repost that racist and Antisemitic video made by Alabama HS students. But every time one of these all too frequent videos hits social media, remember that these virulently racist kids grow up to be judges, police, doctors, hiring managers, loan officers etc.
The video prompted a varied response, with some sharing tongue-in-cheek memes, while others were more serious in their condemnation.
Some responded with memes.
Others condemned their actions with words.
The video launched a discussion about privilege.
And parenting.
Students of the school have also come out to say their peers' actions do not represent them all.
Hoover School District superintendent Kathy Murphy confirmed that the students go to Spain Park and Hoover High Schools, in Hoover, Birmingham, AL.com reported.
Murphy said: “We are exceptionally sad and disappointed that this would either be the attitude of some of our young people or whatever would prompt them to have such conversations."
Hoover City councilman Derrick Murphy said there was "no excuse for hate speech".
I am saddened by the words and thoughts of these children.
There is no excuse for hate speech; or hate for that matter. This does not represent our city.
The girl has been identified as Mackenzie, and her family, who owns a car dealership called Hoover Toyota, released a statement apologising for her actions – and later she released one of her own.
She wrote: "I want to start off by saying that what I did is not OK. The horrible, horrible things that I said were a terrible attempt to be funny."
There is nothing that I can say to make what I did better, and there is no apology that I could possibly construct that would deserve forgiveness.
The things that I said do not reflect the values and morals that my family has instilled in me, nor do they even reflect my own.
I spoke without thinking about what the words truly meant, and the words I chose are extremely hurtful.
The student demographics in the district is 55 per cent white, 25 per cent black, eight per cent Hispanic and seven per cent Asian.
This isn’t the first time a Hoover school was embroiled in a race scandal. In 2018 a teacher resigned after telling a student playing Tupac to “turn the n****r tunes off.”
The school hasn’t yet announced any punishment for its students.
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