Cape Town — Cape Town’s Westerford High School has reportedly issued an apology for a racially motivated incident that caused pain and trauma to its students, staff, and the wider community.
The incident involved offensive and racist comments targeting black students on social media.
The school has come out and apologised profusely for the incident, citing that it regrets the racist and hate speech incident that was targeted at black pupils, saying it caused “immense hurt and trauma”.
According to TimesLIVE, school principal Mark Smith and governing body chair Solange Rosa signed off a statement that said the school is investigating the origin of “offensive, hurtful racist comments” tagging its black pupils on social media.
“We deeply regret the recent incident of racism and hate speech on social media which targeted learners and staff of colour at Westerford High School, causing immense hurt and trauma. The process of uncovering who is responsible for these reprehensible posts is under way and being investigated with the utmost urgency.”
The Instagram account was named “Grade8a_2023” and some of the posts included a picture of a slave family with the caption “I found your family” and some black students tagged.
Another post depicted a picture of some coloured people, with an Instagram poll on it saying “coloured people should burn.”
The school is consulting with an IT expert to identify the perpetrator, whether they are from within the school community or not.
Westerford High School in Cape Town… These kids learnt this from their parents… What did we do to white people that we are hated this much? pic.twitter.com/FFlT71XAO1
— Ashley Filtane (@AshPiet) June 7, 2023
The school has also made the decision to move their exams from 8 June to 12 June to allow staff and learners to heal from the traumatic experience. Western Cape Western Cape Education Department’s (WCED) Bronagh Hammond said the department has been made aware of the incident and the matter is being investigated, IOL said.
“It is unclear if the account was hacked or if it did originate from a pupil at the school. Pupils in the class have also questioned who had created the discriminatory content. The post came from one source.”
“If the account was hacked, then the school would need to consider what action can be taken against the outside perpetrator. If a pupil was involved, then disciplinary action will be instituted,” the report quoted the department as saying.
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Compiled by Matthew Petersen
