BUCKNER, Ky. (WDRB) – Shavonda Williams has talked with her children about racism before, but seeing a racial slur spray-painted on the side of Oldham County High School as she dropped her daughter off for cheerleading practice on Saturday was a tipping point for her.
“It’s one thing to call you names,” Williams, who reported the graffiti to Oldham County Schools and posted images on social media, said Monday.
“If someone can go as far as defacing the school, it’s just like, what type of people are these?” she said. “And I don’t want to just ignore it. I don’t want my child to feel like, you know, ‘Mom this is a concern of mine, and you’re telling me to just turn a blind eye,’ so I had to make those phone calls and those emails.”
Williams said her daughter Bryyann, who is a sophomore at Oldham County High School, began receiving text messages from her friends alerting her to the slur spray-painted on the side of the school as they pulled into the parking lot and had seen it themselves.
“My first reaction was like, wow, this is 2019, and we’re still seeing this stupid word, but as a parent, I didn’t want to overreact,” Williams said. “I didn’t want her to feed into the energy that this meant something to us.”
Graffiti found at Oldham County High School on Saturday, Jan. 26, 2019. This image has been edited by WDRB to remove profanity and pornographic imagery.
District maintenance crews immediately painted over the graffiti found on masonry at the high school and spent Sunday and Monday scrubbing the brick veneer. The graffiti included other vulgarities, sexual imagery and the names of two assistant principals, the school district said in a statement Monday.
Two people with dark hooded sweatshirts, backpacks and baseball bats were caught by surveillance cameras vandalizing the high school between 1:40 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. Saturday, Lori McDowell, the district’s communications director, said in a statement.
The Oldham County Police Department is investigating the incident, she said. However, their faces and other identifiable features weren’t visible in the surveillance recording, she said.
“This kind of act will not be tolerated,” McDowell said. “School officials will work with Oldham County Police to make sure the perpetrators are prosecuted to the full extent of that law, and if the perpetrators are found to be students, they will also be disciplined to the full extent of board policy.”
The images have been edited by WDRB News for publication.
Graffiti found at Oldham County High School on Saturday, Jan. 26, 2019. This image has been edited by WDRB to remove a racial slur and pornographic imagery.
Williams said she spoke with OCS Superintendent Greg Schultz by phone Monday, and she wasn’t simply looking for an apology.
She hopes to see the district hold diversity training that includes the broader Oldham County community, namely parents of school children, and not just teachers and administrators. For example, Williams said it would be helpful for her to know how to discuss such issues with her kids without making them “charged up.”
That’s something she discussed with Schultz in their phone conversation Monday, saying she appreciated the attention he’s given to the issue.
“He listened to my concerns,” she said, noting that she volunteered to act as a parent liaison to pass along information about various district initiatives. “He let me know that they have things in place, but if it doesn’t work they go back to the drawing board, but it’s us parents that really need to go out and support these things.”
“I really think we probably got their attention now because it was not just me that spoke up,” she added.
Williams says Saturday isn’t the first time her children have confronted racism at school or in Oldham County. In fact, she said police were called to their home as they were moving in because neighbors thought they were drug dealers.
“When we’re faced with people, always dealing with people that feel like we don’t belong there, that’s an issue with me,” said Williams, who commutes to work in Louisville. “It’s not just at school. It’s the neighbors. We moved out there, and people are calling the cops because they thought we were drug dealers. I mean, it’s stupid stuff in 2019 we shouldn’t be faced with.”
She allowed her kids to stay home from school Monday – other than Bryyann, she has a third grader and a junior in the Oldham County school system – after she posted photos of and her take on the racist graffiti on Facebook.
“A lot of people” weren’t happy that her Facebook post drew attention to the incident, she said.
“They were just kind of worried that, you know, ‘Because you did this mom, maybe they’re going to target us,’” Williams said of the decision to keep her kids home from school.
Shavonda Williams talks with WDRB News about reporting racist graffiti outside Oldham County High School to the school district.
For her part, Williams hopes to see the district take action and says she’ll welcome the chance to help where she can.
“Hopefully this will get addressed,” she said. “No, it’s not going to solve the problem, but at least we can all start working together for a solution. That’s all I’m after is a solution.”
Reach reporter Kevin Wheatley at 502-585-0838 and kwheatley@wdrb.com. Follow him on Twitter @KevinWheatleyKY.
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