Members of a small Pennsylvania town are making noise after five teens in their community were photographed mockingly posing wearing White Lives Matter T-shirts and were reportedly only sent home from school early on the last day of the year.
The image, which began circulating on Snapchat and Reddit, shows the group of teenage males who attended Montgomery Area High School wearing the shirts, in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and smiling, while one in the group poses with his two middle fingers raised. The students allegedly wore the shirts to school that day.
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“One of the most disrespectful things I’ve ever seen happen in Montgomery,” read a student’s Snapchat caption that was captured on Reddit. “Only reason you did this was to piss people off and look like a complete racist, not funny at all.”
An anonymous source sent the image to VICE News, which reached out to the students in the image, the school’s vice-principal, the district’s superintendent, as well as various members of the Montgomery County System School Board for comment, but were met with no responses.
According to a source, the students were given a slap on the wrist for the offensive photo. “They were sent home from school. It was the LAST DAY. There were NO other repercussions,” said the source. “They even went to prom the very next night. Some of them are seniors going off to represent OUR school and town.”
“These boys have not apologized or been reprimanded. Montgomery perpetuates racism and, by not holding them accountable, allows it,” another source said.
Although the 97 percent white rural town of Montgomery, Pennsylvania, population 1,564, was described by sources to the news outlet as “very right-wing” and “conservative-Christian oriented,” those sources admitted that those same ideologies oftentimes lead to racist viewpoints. This incident has the town talking, however, many are afraid to publicly go against the dominating viewpoints within the community, which trickles right down to the schools.
“Each graduating class has roughly 45-60 kids per class,” said a source. “So in a town like this, you don’t really go against the grain or you are bullied and ostracized.”
