Controversy Stirs Over Jackson Students' Photo: Report

JACKSON, NJ — A photo of a group of Jackson Liberty High School students wearing T-shirts that include a racially charged word has sparked controversy, according to reports.

New Jersey 101.5 reported the photo, which was taken Friday morning at the school, prompted a letter to parents from the high school's principal, Maureen Butler, saying steps are being taken to address the situation.

The photo shows 16 students, who the NJ101.5 report described as racially diverse, wearing white T-shirts with orange paint that spelled out "WE R ALL N****S." The spelling was a slang version of the racial slur that has been used to put down black people for decades. Paw prints, representing the school's mascot, a lion, replaced two of the letters.

Two of the 16 students in the photo are African American students, according to the report. Butler's letter said administrators spoke to the students and they do not "believe there was any malice or disrespect in the hearts of any of the students involved.”

The spelling used on the shirts has become popular in rap and hip-hop music. The use of it by white people, however, has repeatedly sparked controversy. Gwyneth Paltrow angered people in 2012 when she tweeted a photo of herself, R&B singer The-Dream and two Jay-Z affiliates, Ty Ty and Bee-High, at a Paris performance by Jay-Z that included the use of the word, according to Slate report. Kylie Jenner was criticized after sharing a photo on Snapchat of a birthday cake presented to Jordyn Woods that used the slang spelling, according to the Daily Beast. Jenner later said the cake was not hers.

Earlier this year, comedian Bill Maher was vilified when he used the primary racial slur on his show "Real Time with Bill Maher," with Ice Cube telling him "That's our word and you can't have it back," when Maher sat down with him the following week, according to the Washington Post. Maher did apologize.

At the heart of the controversies is what Neal A. Lester, a professor at Arizona State University who has taught a course focused on the word, is its intentionally derogatory history that goes back to the 1700s: "It has never been able to shed that baggage since then," he said in an interview published on the Teaching Tolerance website, "even when black people talk about appropriating and reappropriating it."

"The poison is still there. The word is inextricably linked with violence and brutality on black psyches and derogatory aspersions cast on black bodies. No degree of appropriating can rid it of that bloodsoaked history," Lester said in the interview.

The problem, Lester said, is the confusion that has arisen because hip-hop has become so popular among white youths, who he said are "statistically the largest consumers of hip-hop."

"(White youths) then feel that they can use the word among themselves with black and white peers. … But then I hear in that same discussion that many of the black youths are indeed offended by (white youths using it)," he said. "This word comes laden with these complicated and contradictory emotional responses to it. It’s very confusing to folks on the 'outside,' particularly when nobody has really talked about the history of the word in terms of American history, language, performance and identity."

The African-American Registry website says, in a piece discussing the history of the word, says the response to white people using the word is because of "the false impressions it incorporates and means, puts down Blacks, and rationalizes their abuse. The use of the word or its alternatives by Blacks has not lessened its hurt."

"There’s no way to know all of its nuances because it’s such a complicated word, a word with a particular racialized American history, but one way of getting at it is to have some critical and historical discussions about it and not pretend that it doesn’t exist," Lester said inthe Teaching Tolerance interview. "We also cannot pretend that there is not a double standard — that blacks can say it without much social consequence but whites cannot." But people need to "self-reflect critically on how we all use language and the extent to which language is a reflection of our innermost thoughts."

Butler's letter said "we remain confident that the spirit of unity, tolerance and respect among our Liberty Lion family is alive and well,” the NJ101.5 report said, adding that they would be talking with the students about "how their words and actions can be perceived, and the consequences of those perceptions.”

Read more of the report here.

Jackson Liberty High School photo via Google Maps