On Thursday of last week, the Daily K.O.S. online news site surfaced a story involving two Caucasian students from Grapevine High School, located in Grapevine, Texas, who recorded a disgustingly racist freestyle. Some of the lyrics included phrases such as “n**** n**** n**** always looking at me, I want to kill them yea I want to hang them from a tree” and “enough with n**** let’s talk about the brown ones, Mexicans fat ones and round ones”.
The rap freestyle has outraged many who have heard it including a great number of students at Grapevine High School. The school’s principal, Shannon Tovar, sent out an email assuring that there is an investigation taking place and that the song is not reflective of the culture of respect, understanding, and sensitivity towards others displayed at her school. She also shared some details about the offensive recording, stating that it was first posted to social media in June of 2013 and that they’ve recently became aware of it. She then went on to explain that the school has no legal authority in this matter since the recording didn’t happen while school was in session.
Both students involved have issued apologies regarding the incident. The first apology finds one of the students dedicating a paragraph to making sure people understand that she’s a good person. Informing readers that she doesn’t actually identify with the various offenses she delivered. Another portion of it depicted her ignorance of social media, claiming that the song doesn’t portray how she feels about people and that she is a very open-minded person.
The other apology focuses more on the student’s self image and contains much contradiction. The student claimed to be humiliated once the song reached the principal’s office and says that her heart is full of kindness and unconditional love. The student then says that it was a freestyle done at the age of 14 and said things they knew would make people laugh. The contradiction kicks in when the student leans on the fact that they mimicked what they grew up around, then states that she has never heard a foul or judgmental word leave her parent’s mouth.
Despite apologies being delivered from both students, neither focuses on the concern of potential hurt they could have caused others. So far, no action has been taken against either student and the full audio can be heard on dailykos.com.