Recently, in Arizona, six female high school students at Desert Vista High School lined up in their homemade senior picture day t-shirts to spell out a racial slur in the halls of their school and took pictures to post on social media. Instead of the original intent, which was to spell out "BEST YOU’VE EVER SEEN CLASS OF 2016,” their offensive and entirely unacceptable stunt has left them at the mercy of the thousands of internet users, many of whom are calling for their immediate expulsion as well as other disciplinary action.
Upon hearing about this story, I immediately thought back to president of an Oklahoma University who, late last year, blasted his students for being too sensitive and playing victim any time they got their feelings hurt. This incident, on the other hand, shows how teenagers and young adults are apparently unconcerned about how their actions, and their posts on social media may be viewed as extremely offensive and unacceptable.
My initial rage was centered around how these young girls were pictured laughing as they spelled out one of the most derogative terms that exists in our society. How could girls from my generation be so ignorant to the terrible history behind such an ugly word? It wasn't until I realized that the girls have yet to be disciplined that I really started to get angry.
It is bizarre to me that there would be any debate about the punishment for these girls. Half the problem with the trend of sensitive kids is that our society is afraid to punish them for doing anything wrong. Authorities in this situation should be expected to issue immediate expulsions for all six of these girls. There is no excuse for what they did, and they should be punished accordingly. A lesson that needs to be learned by many kids is that one's actions have consequences, especially when those actions involve social media and the internet.
Why is our society concerned about some kids that get their feelings hurt when the same kids are being extremely offensive to others? It does not make sense to me how my generation, which is supposed to be a progressive generation, could still include young girls that would do such an awful thing and find it funny. While I'm all for learning from your mistakes, there are some mistakes that should never happen in the first place. As for the girls in the picture, I hope they learn that this picture will follow them for the rest of their lives.
