Florida Teen Apologizes After 'Racist' Promposal Sparks Outrage

A Florida teen has come under fire for a promposal in which he made a racist sign as his gesture to ask his girlfriend for school dance. The image, which was shared on Snapchat, shows the Riverview High School student from Sarasota, Florida, holding a sign that reads: “If I was black I'd be picking cotton, but I'm white so I'm picking u 4 Prom?"

The promposal went viral after 18–year-old Noah Crowley's girlfriend recently shared the sign on the messaging app and captioned the post with heart-eyes emojis. Sarasota County school authorities released a statement Monday saying they don’t “condone” the sign.

A spokeswoman for the school district, Tracey Beeker, confirmed Monday morning that Crowley attended Riverview and said officials are investigating the incident, the Herald-Tribune reported. Beeker added school administrators spoke to the student and his parents on the phone Sunday evening.

Trevor Harvey, president of the Sarasota chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, asked the school to issue a statement to make it clear to the students that the sign was inappropriate and warn them against such behavior.

The latest incident comes at a time when several other schools have been witnessing similar cases of racist behavior against African-American students.

According to a report in Maryland's daily newspaper the Capital, in March, the principal of Chesapeake High School in Pasadena, California, Stephen Gorski, wrote a letter to the parents stating that racial and religious symbolic slurs were found on a toilet seat inside a boys bathroom. Prior to this, there were allegations that African-American students had to endure daily abuses and humiliations at the school.

In another incident in Sacramento, California, on Feb. 11, a high school project titled “Race and IQ” irked both students and parents at C.K. McClatchy High School as it questioned whether people from certain races lack the intelligence required to finish the school program’s coursework. The project reportedly raised the hypothesis: “ If the average IQs of blacks, Southeast Asians, and Hispanics are lower than the average IQs of non-Hispanic whites and Northeast Asians, then the racial disproportionality in (HISP) Hispanic-Americans is justified.”

The racially charged project, prepared for a science fair, had quotes from five books including “The Essential Kafir,” which dates back to 1904, according to which people from South African were intellectually inferior to whites. The project was later withdrawn following complaints from parents and staff members.

Talking about the latest incident at Riverview High School, senior student Anton Kernohan said Crowley' promposal sign highlights the issue of racism in American society.

“It shows that racism is still alive and well in our society, and it shows that racism is still alive in my generation and it is something that we as the youth will have to continue to fight against,” Kernohan, who has been actively participating in gun control protests at the school, said.

Crowley's family sent out a public apology on social media for his actions and said he will not attend Riverview High School’s prom or graduation ceremony as a result of his actions.