DALLAS -- On July 11, a Southlake Carroll High School alumnus of the class of 2019 shared a story about a student in their math class who kept using the N-word.
“Instead of confronting him, I just reported it to the principal, because in my time at Carroll, I quickly learned that when I retaliate against racism, administrators would threaten me with punishment to keep me quiet,” the story reads.
The alumnus then went on to say that the principal had a long conversation with the boy and the alumnus, in which the boy denied it over and over again and said the word wasn’t offensive. He eventually walked away without receiving any consequences.
“Instead of doing anything my principal just said something along the lines of, ‘Don’t let these people dim your light,’” the account reads. “He also told me that if I wasn’t careful I wouldn’t be able to walk at graduation.”
This story is one of hundreds of stories of racist incidents and microaggressions shared on the Southlake Anti-Racism Coalition Instagram account. Carroll graduates Anika Shah and Nishita Pondugula started the coalition and the related social media accounts this summer to combat what they see as a toxic culture of racial insensitivity and ignorance. The accounts are meant to push the Carroll Independent School District and other administrations in Southlake to take more concrete steps to fight racism.
"It’s actually a little bit frustrating because students feel that we need to step up because we feel as if our adults have been failing us at this time,” Shah said. “I keep hearing all these experiences of racism and bigotry in Southlake. We felt like we needed to step up. We’ve been silenced and unheard.”
Shah, who is of Indian descent, experienced racism while she was a student at Carroll High School. Though she was voted student body president of her senior class, she often felt that her opinions and ideas during important conversations went unheard or were outright ignored while her non-POC colleagues did not face these problems.
“I would pitch ideas and solutions that would be implemented weeks later after someone else pitched the ideas,” she said. “I wasn’t really being talked to — I was being talked at. My white counterparts were getting more praise and attention.”
And she isn’t alone if the more than 300 accounts of racism and bigotry posted on the SARC Instagram account are anything to go by. The stories are all posted anonymously, and many of them recount instances in which white students used racist language, made racist comments, or excluded people based on race while the administration did nothing.
“In eighth grade, I was referred to as a ‘suicide bomber’ by a boy and his friend group, so I called him stupid,” one account posted on July 13 reads. “I was the one who got in trouble.”
Southlake Carroll and the city as a whole have a long history of racist incidents, and many high profile ones within the past three years. In 2017, a plaque in Southlake Town Square dedicated to former NFL player Frank Edgar Cornish was defaced with, “KKK will get you, Black people.”
In October 2018, a Snapchat video of nine Carroll students chanting the N-word went viral, and four months later, another video of four Southlake students shouting the N-word surfaced.
Then in January of this year, the school was vandalized with racial slurs on the day the newly founded District Diversity Council was set to meet.
After the videos surfaced, Carroll ISD posted a statement to Facebook saying they were proud of the students who came forward to the administration to show the video, and that the district was resolved to “promote cultural competence.”
“Racism is not welcome in Carroll ISD or in Southlake. It is a world problem,” the statement reads. “We believe it is also a heart problem. And while we are about all students and must continue to educate them, we can also work together to set expectations and consequences for inappropriate behaviors.”
Shah, who was a student at the time, said the response wasn’t enough.
“Southlake’s background is just a type of background that builds this sort of environment,” she said. “It’s a type of area that perpetuates bigotry. There have been multiple incidents of racism, and our district refuses to do anything about it. There’s no action being taken.”
In response to the SARC Instagram account, Carroll ISD posted a comment on a post from July 11 saying that the district has been meeting with students who are willing to sit down and talk face to face, and that the District Diversity Council and the Campus Diversity Councils will be presenting a comprehensive action plan to the school board on Aug. 3.
“Carroll ISD District and Campus Leadership care about every Dragon’s experience in our hallways,” the statement reads.
But Shah didn’t think that statement went far enough. Additionally, she’s seen some of the proposals in the district’s comprehensive action plan and isn’t impressed.
“It felt like they didn’t really care what their students were experiencing,” Shah said. “It felt like they wanted to do everything behind closed doors and not in the public eye.”
In response, SARC has issued its own demand letter. It outlines steps the district should take to achieve intersectional, anti-racist change at the school. These include condemning police brutality against black people and people of color and unequivocally supporting the statement that “Black Lives Matter.” Additionally, SARC wants the district to ban white supremacist imagery (Confederate flags, neo-Nazi symbols, etc.) and enforce a zero-tolerance policy for racism and discrimination in the student handbook and code of conduct.
Shah said the district has yet to respond to SARC’s demand letter, but she does remain optimistic about the possibility of change in a school district that has traditionally swept these incidents under the rug.
“Having worked with admin in the past, I do think there is room for change,” she said. “I guess I’m so frustrated that students have to be doing the work for them… but I am hopeful. I really hope we’re heard this time."