What are we about to do right now? I'm going to talk about people getting kicked
out of school for saying the N-word. So why does any of this matter to me? Well, I'm not sure if you noticed, but I'm
actually... Let's just say I have a vested interest in
ending racism someday, okay? But unlike most situations involving slurs,
I actually have mixed feelings about this one. But before we get into that, of course, I'd
like to do my comment shout out from my last video. Did you lower your bass in editing software
to have an even deeper voice? No. I've been waking up to record these videos
at 6:00 AM, so the higher part of my voice is not awake yet. So who are we talking about today? On the one hand, we have this girl who got
dropped from her university program for saying the N-word. On the other hand, we have the guy who got
her dropped from that program by leaking the N-word video, and their conflict got so bad
by the actually wound up in a New York Times article. So let's go through that. Jimmy Galligan was in history class last year
when his phone buzzed with a... Why am I reading this like a story time? Once he clicked on it, he found a three-second
video of a White classmate looking into the camera and uttering an anti-Black slur. He had brought up the issue to teachers and
administrators, but much to his anger and frustration, his complaints had gone nowhere. Ms. Groves had originally sent the video in
which she looked into the camera and said, "I can drive," followed by the slur to a friend
on Snapchat in 2016, when she was a freshman and had just gotten her learner's permit. She was a child? Okay, wait a second. So this is the video, apparently. "I can drive, [_]." Yikes. Mr. Galligan had not seen the video before
receiving it last school year when he and Ms. Groves were seniors. By then, she was a varsity cheer captain who
dreamed of attending the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Imagine dreaming of attending the University
of Tennessee. Mr. Galligan, who had waited until Ms. Groves
had chosen a college, had publicly posted the video that afternoon. Within hours, it had been shared to Snapchat,
TikTok, and Twitter, where furious calls mounted for the University of Tennessee to revoke
its admission offer. Over the next two days, Ms. Groves was removed
from the university's cheer team. She then withdrew from the school under pressure
from admissions officials who told her they had received hundreds of emails and phone
calls from outraged alumni, students, and the public. Very polite way of kicking her out of school
without having to deal with the smoke. But the story behind the backlash also reveals
a more complex portrait of behavior that for generations has gone unchecked in schools
in one of the nation's wealthiest counties, where Black students said they had long been
subjected to ridicule. "Go pick cotton," some said they were told
in class by White students. Gym teachers at her elementary school organized
an underground railroad game where students were told to run through an obstacle course
in the dark. A report commissioned last year by the school
district documented a pattern of school leaders ignoring the widespread use of racial slurs. This wasn't racism town. This was the capitol city of racism. Ms. Groves said the video began as a private
Snapchat message to a friend. Oh wait, this is her point of view. "At the time, I didn't understand the severity
of the word or the history and context behind it, because I was so young," she said in a
recent interview, adding that the slur was, "in all the songs we listen to, and I'm not
using that as an excuse." She said it with the hard R, though. Child, sit down. The hard R is not in any of the songs you're
listening to. For the University of Tennessee, the outrage
over Ms. Groves followed a string of negative publicity over racist incidents of this flagship
campus in... Oh my gosh. So she was from racism county, and she was
trying to attend racism university. For his role, Mr. Galligan said he had no
regrets. "If I never posted that video, nothing would
have ever happened," he said. "I'm going to remind myself, you started something,"
he said with satisfaction. "You taught someone a lesson." All right. So what's my opinion on this? Hate that a town like this still exists in
America in current year. I hate that a student could feel so powerless
that they feel like that's the only time he's ever felt like he's had any power against
racism. I hate that another girl was racist because
she was taught that. I mean, she's responsible for her actions,
but it's clear. Both of these people are still very young,
and they're being used as scapegoats by all the adults. The University of Tennessee high key used
this girl as a scapegoat, because they're like, "Oh, look at us. We didn't let one person into our university." This other kid is being used as a scapegoat
too, because now people are like, "Oh, see, he's crazy. And Black people, this is what they want." I hate it here. Now, I actually have two other articles I
wanted to go over because I thought they were very interesting. So this next one is more so a question. This spring at Stanford University, two non-Black
professors read aloud the N-word in class from a lyric in a historic text. After this happened, Black students at Stanford
published this letter where they were basically like, "Hey, maybe if you didn't have the non-Black
instructors say the N-word during class..." Legally, people can use slurs in a university
setting. True, kind of based. Yet, while one is free to use the N-word,
one can also choose to avoid the word precisely in order to promote better learning. Wait, I like this article. Okay, so basically, just because you can legally
say the N-word, you can choose not to if you're not Black. Whichever words one prefers, inclusivity and
empathy serve the same semantic principle as respect and civility despite leaning more
toward a Humian rather than a Kantian framework. Why is she low key smart? I love this article. Fun fact, like this article is laying out,
you legally can say whatever garbage you want to say. And I'm not saying reading the N-word in Huckleberry
Finn makes you a bad person at all. What I'm saying is it's your choice how you
want to present yourself. And regardless of what your intentions were,
that choice is going to have a reaction from the people listening to you, and they are
free to express that as well. You're not erasing history by changing the
way we talk about it. Ruth A. Starkman teaches writing, biomedical,
and computing ethics at Stanford University. No she doesn't. Ruth A. Starkman teaches facts. She didn't miss once. So the last story that we're going to be looking
at here raises yet another question. Can you get punished by your school for saying
things outside of school that make the school look bad? This one's not really connected to the N-word,
but I just figured it would be a nice way to wrap things up. It's called "a cheerleader's vulgar message
prompts a First Amendment showdown". So basically, she was like, "Frick school,
frick softball, frick cheer, and frick everything," and I support her. Though Snapchat messages are ephemeral by
design, another student took a screenshot of this one and showed it to her mother, a
coach. Okay, snitch. Okay, 6ix9ine. The school suspended the student from cheerleading
for a year, saying the punishment was needed to avoid chaos and maintain a team-like environment. The student sued the school district, winning
a sweeping victory in the Third US Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. The court said the First Amendment did not
allow public schools to punish students for speech outside of school grounds. The Supreme Court is deciding whether to hear
the case. Here's my opinion on that whole thing. So the average age for someone in the ninth
grade is 14 or 15. As a 14 or 15 year old, I think you do need
to be taught if you're part of a team, you can't just go on social media and say, "Oh,
screw them." But a one year suspension from cheerleading? She posted one Snapchat story, and here's
the part about that. She didn't attack anybody in this story. Maybe a one week suspension from cheerleading. You're going to have to sit this one out for
a second. You can't just say, "Screw cheer," and then
stay on the cheer team. You're making us look really bad. If you were at a job and you posted this,
you might actually be fired. This is kind of really serious. But a one-year suspension, that starts seeming
vindictive. Instead of addressing the fact that school
is needlessly competitive and extremely taxing on these kids' mental health, they're like,
"I don't even know. What if we just punish them or something?" All right, so what are my final thoughts on
all of this? I think schools don't give a single care about
the students who attend or whether or not they feel safe, or whether or not there's
actual racism happening. I think schools just want to avoid the smoke. What I'm trying to say here is let's not pretend
like this kid got her kicked out of school for no reason, because it was very clearly
outlined to me why he did that. But let's also not pretend like that's helpful
at all in making progress towards, you know, Black people not being killed in the street. I think the lesson here is clear. If you're born in a racist town to racist
parents, then just move. Even if you're still a baby. Legally, it's your responsibility to remove
yourself from that environment. Anyway, I'll be here all week, folks, at 2:00
PM Central Time. If it's Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I'm
uploading a new video here. If it's Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday, that
means I'm going live over on Twitch. So basically, what I'm saying is I'll see
you tomorrow, unless tomorrow is Sunday, in which case just watch this video again. Okay, bye.
