The parents of two Indiana high school girls are demanding action after their daughters voiced their concern about going to school amidst racist bullying that went virtually unpunished.
According to The Indy Channel, Alexander Wortham was the first one to realize that something was wrong after his daughter, Imani, started asking to stay home more than often. He and the other parent, Dominique Duncan discovered that the two teens were at the receiving end of horrible racist bullying at the Horizon Christian high school.
“Silence is killing our young people,” Wortham said. “People not dealing with the issue. Not dealing with the problem and I think for us, as parents, enough is enough.”
Imani and her friend, LaShanti say that a boy at the school started threatening them and even said that he would sell one of the girls into slavery.
“If the school ever gets shot up, you’ll be the first one to get shot,” the boy reportedly said.
“He pointed to me personally, he looked me in the eye,” Imani added.
“He said he would sell me into slavery if I didn’t do what he said and then he started making little jingles about slavery,” LaShanti revealed.
The boy was suspended from school last week after Wortham and Duncan brought up the bullying to school officials, however, the student was allowed to return to school on last Monday, making both girls so uneasy that they did not want to go to school the following week.
“We should be able to go to school and not feel threatened, scared or having to be on edge the whole time,” Imani told the news site.
Wortham and Duncan are demanding that the school create policy changes around bullying, and recommended that the school host an assembly or bring in experts to start to mediate conversations about race and bullying.
However, the principal declined to comment on the incident to the news station saying that they could not discuss students without the express permission from the parents of those involved.
Ducan told the news site that she felt “very let down” as a parent.
