(Name-mce) ListServ In wake of 'headdress' incident, insults fly on Web site

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In  wake of 'headdress' incident, insults fly on Web site

By Debra  Filcman
Wednesday, December 06, 2006 - Updated: 16:00 PM EST

Members  of the varsity volleyball team ignited a racial debate by wearing
Native  American headdresses to a state semifinal game, but their classmates
further  fueled the ire with derogatory comments on a Web site and in an
article for  the Brookline High School newspaper.

On Nov. 7, members of the volleyball  team created a group on Facebook.com,
a social networking Web site, which  allows students or alumni from a
particular high school or college to  communicate with the entire rest of
the group.

The group’s name was:  “We are the Warriors, we will always be the
Warriors.”

It was meant to  create support for maintaining the longstanding team name,
last changed in  the 1980s from the “Indians,” but the group soon became a
forum for hateful  messages instead. 

“Facebook is this new way to express opinions,” senior  co-captain Emily
Harburg said. “I don’t think they thought about the  consequences it could
have. It’s crazy some of the things people were  saying.”

By the end of the night, according to administrators and  students alike,
the group garnered an estimated 400 postings, by both current  and former
students, many of which used racist and profane language to  describe Native
Americans. They also attacked particular Native American  students,
classmates said.

When administrators became aware of the Web  postings the following day,
they called individual student authors into their  offices to discuss their
behavior.

“We expressed deep disappointment  with their words, and we communicated to
students that their character is  impacted by how they behave when no adult
is watching,” Weintraub said. “We  asked them if their comments on Facebook
defined their characters. Students  expressed regret and important
discussions ensued, but disciplinary action  was not taken.”

School Committee Chairwoman Judy Meyers said she doesn’t  believe students
meant to have the impact they did.

“Sometimes we  don’t really think about what our words really mean and how
hurtful they can  be,” Meyers said.

Superintendent Bill Lupini said whether to discipline  students for online
behavior is a difficult decision.

Policies toward  bullying, both via computers and in the flesh, were
recently debated, Meyers  said, with no clear decision on how much the
school can intervene in matters  that occur outside the premises.

“It certainly becomes more difficult to  distinguish what is in school and
what is outside of school,” he  said.

Several students apologized to the classmates they offended, and  deleted
their comments from the Web site following those meetings. Soon, the  group
was taken offline altogether by its creators.

Though murmurings  died down about the incident before Thanksgiving break,
students returned  from the break to find the latest issue of the Sagamore,
the student  newspaper, first reporting on it.

The article rehashed much of what the  students involved already knew, but
fueled the debate further when it quoted  Tribal Community Alliance leader
Alicia Mucha repeating some of the profane,  vulgar names she and other
Native American students were called.

The  Sagamore quoted Mucha’s saying she was called “an ugly Sasquatch bitch”
and a  “Native American [expletive],” among other things.

“We interviewed  Alicia, and she was really well spoken and we came out with
some good, honest  stuff,” Sagamore editor-in-chief Lilah Raptopoulos said.
“When I first heard  her say that quote that we used, it hit me really  hard
personally.”

But Raptopoulos and her co-writer, staff writer  Sarah Nalven, sat down for
serious conversations with their faculty adviser,  Lindsay Wise.

Wise did not return calls by press time.

Weintraub  said he did not feel he could legally stop publication of the
offensive words  in the student paper.

“I’d have preferred they not use it, but the  Brookline High School handbook
and the law prevent me from censoring any  school publication,” Weintraub
said. “It was definitely profane, but is it  obscene? I don’t know.

“These are great kids and they did sit down and  think about it, but decided
to go ahead because they felt it ensured the  integrity of the story,” he
added.

Raptopoulos said the language was a  necessary evil.

“The harshness of the language was the message in  itself,” she said.

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