Parents Furious after Catholic School Allows Students to Hoist ‘White Privilege’ Banner at Football Game
Parents of students at a North Carolina Catholic high school are furious that school officials allowed kids to hoist a huge banner attacking “white privilege” during a recent football game.
Cheerleaders at Charlotte Catholic High School were seen holding a giant banner reading, “Sniff, sniff. You smell that? $Privilege$.”
To slam the message home, the word “privilege” was spelled out in white letters.
But parents were furious over the attack on white people from the mostly white cheerleading squad.
According to WBTV-TV, parent Melissa Swanson — whose biracial son goes to the school — slammed the banner saying that it arrogantly told everyone “Here we are at a rich, white high school, and they’re all lucky. We have it hard. They don’t.”
Swanson added: “And that’s not the case — by no means. I am a single mom, and I raise my son on my own, and we pay for that school and work hard to be there.”
She also said her son said, “Mom, don’t they see that we have other black boys on our team?”
“I just said it’s unfortunate that these things have to be discussed every day,” Swanson said. “And it’s not right, and that’s why I am so proud to have him at St. Gabriel and in the Catholic School system because we teach kindness.”
One of Swanson’s biggest problems with the banner is that the school let children do this activism and she wondered where the supervision was. “Whether they are high school, elementary school, or middle school — they’re children. The administration, the coaches, the athletic director — they had to know it.”
For its part, Charlotte Mecklenburg School District posted a message apologizing for the idiotic banner.
CMS is aware of an insensitive banner displayed by the Butler HS cheerleading squad prior to the school’s football game versus Charlotte Catholic last Friday. Squad members and adults responsible for oversight will face consequences as a result of that banner display. School and district officials will offer no specific information about this disciplinary matter. Principal Golden and Learning Community Superintendent Tangela Williams have spoken with leaders from Charlotte Catholic to offer verbal apologies. Butler High School cheerleaders have sent an apology letter to counterparts at Charlotte Catholic. Soon there will be a meeting between the schools’ cheerleading squads to facilitate goodwill and understanding.
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