Tweets flowing in for #BlackatBLS

Students at the historic Boston Latin School this week encouraged their peers to share their experiences with racial insensitivity using the hashtag#BlackatBLS. The campaign has taken off over the past few days, shedding light on the casual racism students say they experience from educators and classmates.

Organizers Kylie Webster Cazeau and Meggie Noel launched the campaign in a video posted to YouTube on Monday. By Thursday it had been viewed more than 4,000 times.

Rahn Dorsey, the city’s chief of education, responded ina video from the Boston Herald posted yesterday.

“I think any citations or allegations or suspicions of racial inequality we have got to take deadly serous in the district,” Dorsey told Boston Herald Radio. “I think we have to figure out what is the work that we need to do with that community to get to some of the root issues and to talk about substantive practice changes.”

The campaign also has support from City Councilor Tito Jackson, who tweeted he was “proud of the students at Boston Latin School 4 making their voice heard about their experience being #BlackAtBLS”

I’m proud of the students at Boston Latin School 4 making their voice heard about their experience being #BlackAtBLS https://t.co/TZJp63xUrG

— Tito Jackson (@titojackson) January 20, 2016

As it continues to expand to adults and students who don’t go to BLS, here are some of the tweets the campaign has inspired so far:

When POC are the majority at every other BPS high school except for the one with the most opportunity #blackatBLS

— Adam (@OverTheKamoon) January 18, 2016

#BlackAtBLS everyone thinks they can touch your hair and ask if it’s real

— Swirl (@cosetten) January 18, 2016

“So do you live in the bad part of Dorchester or the really bad part of Dorchester” #blackatbls

— Mason’s World (@_isxo) January 18, 2016

#BlackAtBls is not limited to Boston Latin school students. It’s for every student of color & their allies who feel silenced and disregarded

— BLS B•L•A•C•K (@blackatbls) January 18, 2016

#BlackatBLS is sitting down with your teacher about their racist remarks and having them say them again in class the next day

— BLSproblems (@BLSproblems) January 18, 2016

getting passionate about something and people automatically assume you’re being “ratchet” or “ghetto” #blackatbls

— yari (@yyelenia) January 18, 2016

“You speak so white”
I’m sorry. I didn’t realize intelligence and eloquence was only associated with white people #BlackAtBls

— Meggie Noel . (@megosaurus_rawr) January 18, 2016

when your teacher calls you the name of three different black girls in the grade cause y’all “look exactly alike” #BlackatBLS

— mikayla w. (@mkxlz) January 18, 2016