Middle Schooler SUSPENDED And BANNED From Sporting Events After Being Accused Of Wearing Blackface

It’s official: having school spirit is now racist! A Muirlands Middle School student in San Diego, California has been suspended and completely banned from future sporting events after wearing “war paint” on his face at a La Jolla High School football game. According to Muirland Middle School’s principal, however, this is a clear-cut case of blackface. 

But you tell me, does this look like blackface to you?

This is a photo of the student in question taken at the Friday night football game. He wasn’t the only student to have a painted face there, and there were no reports of him displaying bad behavior at the game. In fact, security guards and police officers were present the entire night without incident. 

One security guard, who happens to be of African American descent, even reportedly joked with the student to make his “spikes” bigger by adding more paint.

It wasn’t until the student’s parent was called into the principal’s office the next week that there was any indication that there was an issue with the student’s face paint. Convinced it was a misunderstanding, the parent explained that a fellow student had painted the 13-year-old’s face as an expression of school spirit – the style of paint for sporting events had become a trend on TikTok – and showed the above photo to the principal. Unfortunately, the principal remained adamant that suspension of the student would be necessary, and the photo proved to be “blackface.” 

Here is the suspension notice given by the school. Notice the box checked that reads “Offensive comment; intent to harm.”

Now let’s look at the definition of blackface. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, blackface is “dark makeup worn to mimic the appearance of a Black person and especially to mock or ridicule Black people.”

The student said he had never heard the term “blackface” before and didn’t know what it was. An adult had to explain it to him.

So, if the student’s intent wasn’t to mimic the appearance of an African American person, and he took no part in mocking them, then…WHY is this poor kid banned from all future school sporting events? 

I’m not sure about you, but in all the portrayals of blackface, I can think of, well over half the person’s face is covered in black paint.

*cough cough* Justin Trudeau.

Comparing the image of the 8th grader with the photo of the Canadian Prime Minister is actually laughable. Does the San Diego Unified School District really think the two are the same? You know those activity books where you have to find the differences between two images? Maybe the principal of Muirlands Middle School should spend some time working on those instead of banning a 13-year-old kid from cheering on his school’s football team.

Libs of TikTok consulted attorney Karin Sweigart with Dhillon Law, who specializes in constitutional and free speech issues. She has actually worked on cases involving blackface before, including one where two teen boys sued a school in California over being accused of blackface. “The Supreme Court has several times dealt with the issue of students’ off-campus speech…there are serious constitutional problems on what the school did and with California law. [Muirland Middle School is] really not on very solid ground. Their acts are very constitutionally suspect.” Karin added, “I never thought I’d have a niche practice in blackface cases, but that’s something we dealt with a couple of times.” 

“My son’s name needs to be cleared…It’s reckless to assume the worst in a child only because he’s white…With such a serious allegation you would think there would be a thorough investigation of intent from all parties,” stated the parent of the student.

Neither the school district nor Muirlands Middle School responded to our request for comment.