A high school honors assignment art display that was supposed to provide a reflection on the meaning of “social justice” ended up furthering students’ indoctrination in the “#BlackLivesMatter” movement.
A student at Oxon Hill High School in Prince George’s County, Maryland, has begun a Change.org petition to bring back an art display portraying a white police officer reading the obituaries in a newspaper, while next to him is a figure of a black man wearing a bloody shirt and holding his hands up. A sign next to the display reads, “Young Black Males: The New Endangered Species.”
As MyFoxdc.com reports, the art display was removed Monday from the school lobby when officials received complaints that it was inappropriate and offensive.
As a photo of the art project spread on social media, some said it was disrespectful to police officers, while others thought it was acceptable.
Student Kiana Harris said, “People, black males in specific, are getting killed off a lot by police and it’s happening more often.”
Those in support of the display began sharing it on Twitter using #donttakeitdown.
In removing the display, Prince George’s County Public Schools said, “While we encourage this type of evaluation, expression and analysis in our school district, we also strive to foster a civil and respectful culture.”
In place of the controversial display that was removed, a new exhibit was erected featuring two coffins and gravestones that read, “Here lies our freedom of speech.”
The Change.org petition reads:
Recently, at Oxon Hill High School our extremely talented Honors Art Studio students created a piece to showcase police brutality. The piece included statistics and our viewpoints on what has been going on in society. It was truly an amazing and heartfelt display. We were ordered to take it down because people unaffiliated with our school were “offended.” We will not stand for this form of censorship or the violation of our right of freedom of expression.
We demand the following from the Prince George’s County Board of Education:
- Issue a statement in solidarity of the Oxon Hill High School students and their right to freedom of speech and expression; as stated to the 1969 Supreme Court ruling Tinker v. Des Moines.
- We demand a process be implemented that allows students to appeal decisions that concern curriculum and censorship in schools.
This is not just about Oxon Hill, it is about our voices being silenced regarding students in an educational system. We REFUSE to be denied our right to freedom. – #donttakeitdown #ourvoicesmatter
As of publication, the petition had over 1,300 supporters.
h/t Right Scoop