A Florida high school student who held a ‘racist’ sign asking a girl to prom has been ridiculed on social media.
Noah Crowley from Riverview High School in Sarasota wrote on a large white placard: ‘If I was black I’d be picking cotton, but I’m white so I’m picking u 4 prom?’
The 18-year-old’s so called ‘prom-proposal’ was posted to Snapchat by his date along with two heart emojis. The picture sparked outrage and quickly went viral.
Noah Crowley, 18, from Riverview High School in Sarasota, Florida, holding the ‘racist’ sign in a picture taken by his prom date and posted to Snapchat
‘We have to do better than this. This is why racism is still a thing,’ one person wrote on Twitter.
‘The fact no one told him this was wrong during the entire process of making it, INCLUDING the girl who said yes is a big issue and this makes me sick,’ said another.
The picture even prompted the boy’s headteacher to write a letter to parents.
Kathy Wilks, acting principal at Riverview, said the ‘very concerning situation’ caused by the post, which ‘was racial in nature’, is being investigated by the school.
Since the boy’s post went viral, an apology believed to be written by him has also emerged.
‘I want to sincerely apologise if I have offended anyone with the picture going around. That was not my intention,’ it read.
‘Anyone who knows me… knows that that’s not how we truly feel. It was a completely joke and it went too far.
‘After reading the texts and Snapchat’s, I truly see how I have offended people and I’m sorry.’
A similar prom-posal received equal outrage in South Florida last year.
Three girls at Monarch High School in Coconut Creek held a sign reading ‘You may be picking cotton, but we’re picking you to go to prom with us’.
Two of the students holding the sign were suspended.
Riverview’s school district said in a statement published by WCNC that the boy’s message is being investigated.
It added that the district ‘is working with local and national civic leaders, including the NAACP, to develop a roundtable forum to discuss the issue of race – not just at Riverview, but district-wide.’