There are some things you really just shouldn’t share on social media, like embarrassing pictures from the last frat party you attended — or, if you’re Robertsdale High School student Harley Powell, the blatantly racist sign you made for your high school’s pep rally.
Refinery29 reports that Robertsdale High School in Alabama is looking into a student who somehow thought it was a good idea to bring a racist sign to a pep rally that read, “Put the ‘Panic’ back in Hispanic.” Harley Powell, the student who made the sign, posted a photo to Instagram of her holding it and standing next to a friend holding a “Trump: Make America Great Again” sign. It’s exactly as cringe-y and awful as it sounds.
Powell’s account has since been deleted, but screenshots of her post have gone viral after another student at Robertsdale High School called her out for the sign on Facebook.
“This happened yesterday at our school pep rally,” Jennifer Lopez Vazquez’s Facebook post reads. “They know it’s Hispanic Month. That’s very disrespectful in so my ways. But it’s funny to think that our school thinks it ‘OKAY.’ This is Honestly what white trash looks like.”
In a statement, Eddie Tyler, the superintendent of the school district that oversees Robertsdale High School, said that the district is aware of the sign and investigating the matter. “We are aware of a photo that appears to be taken at a Robertsdale High School football pep rally Friday Sept. 15 that is circulating on social media containing political banners and unacceptable language,” Tyler said. “School administrators, as well as my office, are following up on the matter.”
Meanwhile, a lawyer for one of the students in the photo is claiming that it was nothing but a joke that got out of hand. *Heavy side eye*
“This is a kind of sophomoric joke that’s kind of just gotten out of control,” Domingo Soto told NBC News 15.
Joke or no joke, shouldn’t it be obvious that, considering the fact that the rights of immigrants are more threatened than ever, this is under exactly zero circumstances funny whatsoever?