Issaquah students walk out in response incident with racist photo

Issaquah High School students began a walkout demonstration at 12:15 p.m. Wednesday, making a statement in response to a racist social media post at their recent Tolo dance.

RELATED: Issaquah student’s family releases statement

Under a steady downpour, students at Issaquah HS walkout of class, protesting a racist poster that went viral online. pic.twitter.com/yYlSICBTLl

— Aaron Granillo (@AaronKIROFM) April 3, 2019

The Northwest weather arrived just in time for the demonstration which had students facing heavy wind and rain, proving they really wanted to make the statement. “We are more than a post, we are more than a tweet,” said one girl to the crowd.

Hundreds of students walked out of Issaquah High School to standup against racism after a racist social media post surfaced last weekend. Hear from students at 5pm @KIRO7Seattle pic.twitter.com/m2x8hgVZ6G

— Alison Grande (@AlisonKIRO7) April 3, 2019

A recent social media post showed a boy and a girl standing next to a sign that read, “If I was black, I’d be picking cotton, but instead I pick you. Tolo?”

RELATED: Issaquah School District, teen respond to racist photo
RELATED: Students, district debate way to handle racist sign

The fallout has been significant, even after the girl behind the photo issued an apology. Her family has also issued a statement in response to the controversy.

Student organizer Engu Fontama noted that she appreciates the apology, but the actions are still troubling to many students.

“We definitely do have issues with students being a little bit distant from the idea of racism, simply because there are a lot of white students here who don’t experience that, so it’s a fair problem to have,” Engu said. “But in terms of this kind of blatant, racist stuff, this doesn’t happen at Issaquah [High School] very often.”

Even so, organizer Alex Liu says this isn’t the first time the school has had to deal with students and racism on social media. That feeds into the original reason for the walkout: To change the narrative of Issaquah High School being racist.

“It’s taking charge of the narrative of what Issaquah High School’s reputation is … the reputation of Issaquah being racist and given its historical background, it’s something that the student body — and especially Engu and I — don’t feel serves the other 2,000 students at our school,” Alex said.

“Issaquah High School and the majority of the students don’t hold these same beliefs,” he added.

Even given all that happened, both Alex and Engu said they weren’t angry over the post. More than that, both assured us that most of the student body aren’t racists, and said that the teachers and administrators are focused on stopping this type of behavior.

“I think the number one reason why — despite all these efforts the school is doing — we’re still having these issues, is because there’s still this social acceptability of these racially insensitive jokes and behaviors that are going around,” Alex said.

The Issaquah School District has said it’s investigating the post. The hope is that the walkout will be an opportunity for students to show solidarity. On Facebook, roughly 70 students said they will join the walkout. Video of the demonstration showed that far more eventually took part.

The walkout was slated to last between 30 and 45 minutes, and featured both student and staff speakers.