A Madison Southern student is speaking out against a reported cyberbully attack that occurred earlier this week. The teen says that she was added to a group on a popular social media app by a group of fellow students who apparently proceeded to bombard her with racist obscenities.
“Yesterday I experienced something that no person should ever have to experience”, a social media post made by the teen reads. “I’m a sophomore at Madison Southern High School where racism has always been a problem but I never expected anything like this to happen to me. Earlier on in the school year I had a problem with a senior who called me the N-Word while playing kickball. I told the principal and he “dealt with it”. For the past two years I’ve been fighting with the school board. I’ve been trying to make them take racially charged “incidents” seriously. I went to a teacher when someone called me the N-Word and the teacher told me that,“They were sure the student didn’t mean it like that”. For the past two years I have had to sit through my teachers and classmates reading the N-word out of books that the teacher chose for us to read. I told the teacher how uncomfortable this made me and she told me that it’s her class and she gets to make the ultimate decision. I went to the principal and the superintendent about kids wearing the rebel flag and I was told “our hands are tied”. All of these events reached a boiling point when I got a request on SnapChat from a Southern student. I accepted the request because I figured they had seen me around school. But then that person added me to a group chat of Madison Southern ROTC students including the kid who I had issues with before. In this group chat they called me the N-Word multiple times. And made fun of me and my willingness to speak up for what’s right. This was a premeditated attack on me by people I had never even spoken to nor heard of. They say since they’re seniors there’s nothing I can do about it. But I can use my voice. The most powerful weapon God gave me. I believe that this whole encounter could have been avoided if my school would have been more serious about the way they deal with these situations. We need more than just a slap on the wrist when dealing with racism. All of these seniors will still be graduating from Madison Southern High School.
I won’t stop bringing attention to these situations. Please share this to help bring awareness to this situation as we pursue further legal action. Help me untie their hands.”
Below are screenshots from the apparent cyberbully attack:
WBONtv has an exclusive and extensive interview with the parents, Jonas and Susan Hill. Jonas is a pastor at Crossroads Fellowship church. The Hills say that they have five daughters, and two of their daughters, including Macie whose post went viral last night, have had racial slurs aimed at them on multiple occasions at the High School.
WBONtv reached out to Madison Southern, and is awaiting an official response to this incident. The Hills said that the principal has also called them as of this morning, and said that the situation will be dealt with. Madison Southern did release a statement on their social media page earlier today saying that incidents like this will not be tolerated, and that the matter is being investigated in coordination with the Berea Police Department.
Stay tuned for the video story, which will be posted here and will air live on the 3 p.m. news brief today.
