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NAACP Alarmed At Increase In Utah Students Posting Racist Comments On Social Media

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More young people in Utah are using racial slurs on social media. And schools are working with the NAACP to try and stop it.

The Salt Lake Chapter of the NAACP called a meeting Monday with district officials after they received several reports of white students using racist language online, especially the N-word. Just last fall, a group of Weber High School students resigned from the cheerleading squad after they posted a video of themselves using the slur.

A Hurricane, Utah high school student posted this photo on Instagram on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. A school district spokesperson said she was reprimanded.

Jeanetta Williams is president of the Salt Lake NAACP. She said complaints started pouring in after the 2016 election.

“It just seems like an open door to just do these things and say what they want to and feel like there’s no consequences,” Williams said. “It’s just gotten to be really out of hand.”

The NAACP isn’t calling for students to be punished, however. They just want schools to start talking to students about race.  

Terry Shoemaker, executive director of the Utah School Superintendents Association said that’s a good idea.

“It was emphasized that we need to talk more to the kids themselves, talk more to their parents, talk more with teachers and see if we can identify these things early and put a stop to it as quickly as we possibly can,” Shoemaker said.

Representatives from most of Utah’s school districts attended the meeting.

Whittney Evans grew up southern Ohio and has worked in public radio since 2005. She has a communications degree from Morehead State University in Morehead, Kentucky, where she learned the ropes of reporting, producing and hosting. Whittney moved to Utah in 2009 where she became a reporter, producer and morning host at KCPW. Her reporting ranges from the hyper-local issues affecting Salt Lake City residents, to state-wide issues of national interest. Outside of work, she enjoys playing the guitar and getting to know the breathtaking landscape of the Mountain West.
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