By TOPHER SANDERS, Florida Times-Union
Nearly half the students at First Coast High School stayed home Wednesday in response to threats containing racial epithets motivated by the election of Sen. Barack Obama as president.
A handwritten message in a bathroom and a text message sent to students last week threatened violence if Obama were elected. Some students received a text message Tuesday night reading "attention black seniors, I know who you are. You -- should keep ... in line. We will teach yall tomorrow. We already set up. Who knows when it will happen."
The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and Duval County Public Schools are investigating the messages that kept nearly 1,100 students home, Duval schools spokeswoman Jill Johnson said.
The threats come on the heels of a stabbing at the school on Oct. 17. Although the stabbing had nothing to do with race, it and the threats prompted parents and students to spend about an hour Monday night addressing the Duval County School Board about safety concerns at the school.
Calon Gibbons, 17, a First Coast senior and blogger for the Times-Union, said he didn't receive Tuesday's text message, but did receive an earlier message threatening to blow up the school if Obama won.
"A lot [fewer] kids at school today," Gibbons said.
Gibbons said he didn't think the threats were credible and that he felt safe at the school.
"I feel like it's somebody just playing," he said. "That's just somebody texting."
School officials didn't know how many students received the text messages, but Johnson and the school's principal, Deborah Smith, said the district is taking the threats seriously and has ramped up security at the school.
Board member Vicki Drake, whose district includes First Coast, visited the school Wednesday and said she noticed the student absences, but that teaching went on as usual. Drake encouraged parents to use the election as a learning opportunity to diffuse any tension and eliminate the threats.
"It's dangerous and it's not fair to the other children who want to go and learn," she said. "They should not be threatening their fellow classmates like this; that's just absolutely, 100 percent wrong."
Rose Nettles, president of First Coast's Parent Teacher Student Association, said her daughter was at school Wednesday. Nettles said her daughter saw a lot more police officers and felt comfortable about her safety.
"I just can't wait 'til the day that we get past all this stuff," she said. Nettles added that she wasn't speaking for her organization.
Although Gibbons didn't fear for his safety, he took issue with the messages going to black students on the night the country elected its first black president.
"That's very ignorant," he said. "It's not right and it's not fair."
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Comments: 45
Kerrell g.
SAD, all around
I blame their parents
I have had fears of walking places and being mistaken for the wrong race and being beaten or killed just walking or riding my bike to get places...
When I was younger my family had run ins with the KKK and let me tell ya.. when they are determined, it is not pretty and when you have to think quick for fear of your life.... that is not fun...
it's sad to think that kids are being threatened!
I'll hazard a guess that government property won't be defaced when Bush leaves the White House, unlike the Clintons.
honestly, i believe if one is truly a good patriot, then they should support whomever is president and trust that they will do the right thing for the nation. everyone just needs to relax and accept that obama is here to stay and be supportive!!!
p.s. the color of one's skin is not a factor of their intelligence level! i just wish people would get that through their heads and give racism a rest!
Lots of questions and great disgust. I hope that Obama can develop some answers to this kind of thought and behavior. And I hope that the parents of kids in school or out, try to fathom when their child becomes so radical as to be a danger to themselves and others.
Slyphian M , Nov 6, 2008, 4:29pm EST
Slyphian M: The White House has been "defaced," as you call it, for the last 8 years.
The deaths of 4000+ children of America are on his "Family Values" head. Clinton didn't kill thousands of American youth. And the economy was both clean and strong when he "left" office.
Wilka
Football game this evening, a group of blacks attempted to block access to kids who were not Obama supporters. Police, who were already there as part of routine, broke up the group with warnings.
Get the facts before passing on rumors, The Clintons defaced nothing! Don't know where you are hearing this today as it was long ago proven false. I know, it make a great story, even if it is pure fiction.
As far as the comment about the person that wife was told that they are going to show us WHITE folks now! This just shows that racists come in ALL colors! I always love it when a white people say something about someone of another race it is racism, but when the other races say something about whites it is FREEDOM OF SPEECH!
And people wonder why we still have racism?
Boy Joe, I'll be there are a lot of hispanics and asians who won't agree with you.
Are you saying that the white kids at my son's school deserve to be threatened if they say something negative against Obama? That there is no racism involved here because it is blacks against whites? Are you serious? I guess when one of these kids gets beaten up and left in some alleyway, I'll let them know that. That should make them feel much better.
In exercising freedom of speech that speech can be racist as all get out. The person can still utilize his free speech and express it, no matter how bigoted it sounds. We all, black, white, yellow, red and any other, can be bigots in this country, it is their right!
Anyone can be a bigot in this nation and be public about it. I would argue that a lot of hearts have changed since I was a kid, or Obama would never have been elected! And yes, the white man privilege has been long present and now it is spreading to black people with money, or most any race if they have money. Money is a greater instigator of bias than race today, in my humble opinion. Sure there is discrimination out there, for blacks, American Indians, Hispanics and others. Always will be. And if you go to Mexico, there will be discrimination against whites!
I agree James! Funny for five years I was a Production Supervisor for a cheese plant in Cleveland, Ohio. There the work force was 45% Black 35% Hispanic 10% and 10% White, but the racial fighting was amoung the Hispanics, not against other races, but amoung themselves. The Mexicans hated the PR, who hated those from Cuba....It was the weirdest thing to watch. One of the black supervisors and I would just look at each other and laugh about this 'should' be us, not them.
People will always mistrust those that not like them! Sadly this will not change by a law, in fact a law would and has only made it worse.