'It was surreal to see trust-fund babies with prison tattoos.'
Students at Memorial High School in Houston say tensions among their classmates have only escalated after social media photos of students posing for a themed dress-up daySeveral junior and senior class students told BuzzFeed News that they've been hesitant and scared to speak out about what they saw at the school's annual"jersey day" tradition.
"From as early as 2015, the kids have been dressing up in offensive costumes," she said."The kids wear du-rags and cornrows to be 'thuggish' but those things are not thuggish. They are cultural and part of people’s everyday life." This is the first year the 18-year-old is speaking out openly, and she was tentative and careful about her choice of words.
"[They] consciously looked up a Mastering Cornrows 101 video, or walked into a black hair salon, full of people with different experiences from yours, sat down, and thought you belonged there — that those braids were yours because you paid for them." "I felt like I couldn’t go back to class. I didn't feel safe," she told BuzzFeed News."After I said my opinion, they were kind of laughing at me. I felt like they were going to laugh at me in class."
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