As many of you know, high school can be a mean place. You don’t hear too much about people giving each other swirleys and shoving nerds in lockers in the workplace. Whether it be insecurity or ignorance, teenagers seem to always tell you what they really think. Even if their opinions are downright vitriolic.
Unfortunately, Rodney Axson, a 16-year-old black football player for Brunswick High School in Ohio, was the recipient of some of that mindless hate after he knelt during the National Anthem on September 2, just one day after Colin Kaepernick’s now ubiquitous gesture.
Axson, who is one of three black players on the entire team, told the NY Daily News that he wasn’t planning on kneeling for the National Anthem until he overheard two white teammates in the locker room using the “N-word” while referring to members of the opposing team.
Rodney then confronted his teammates, who responded by saying the slur “wasn’t meant for you,” a piss poor attempt at an apology.
But the worst was yet to come. After Rodney kneeled during the pre-game Anthem, he claims that he was called the N word by multiple teammates, both in person and through text messages.
A Snapchat post then surfaced with a hand-written note that is as ignorant as is it disgusting. Axson tweeted the photo, accompanied with the caption, “Who’s ignorant now? Is it still me?”
And the backpedaling commences.
Axson then tweeted out the below:
According to Rodney’s father, two players have confessed to writing part of the note and have been suspended, but no one has confessed to the “Lynch” portion of the note.
Brunswick High School superintendent Michael Mayell said in a statement over the weekend:
“We are still investigating various incidents of inappropriate and racially motivated conduct by students at Brunswick High School. We are cooperating fully with law enforcement as well. As such, we will not comment further until such time as we have a reasonable grasp on all the facts.
“However, let me say that a statement which has circulated on social media connected with this investigation is reprehensible and I am deeply disappointed that any of our students would participate in its publication. Racial slurs and hate speech have no place in the Brunswick schools and those found complicit in such misconduct will be dealt with accordingly. This is a statement I have never even conceived that I might need to release. I am saddened to have to do so.”
Now it’s just a waiting game before all the guilty parties are exposed. Just a bit of well-placed pressure and the snitches always break.
[h/t NY Daily News]