Earlier this week, the Kansas City Defender, a platform specializing in Black news, politics, arts and culture, shared footage of a fight between students. In the clip, a white teen reportedly referred to his Black peer as a “n**ger.”

Upon hearing the racial slur, the Black student immediately approached the pupil and a fight began. The white teen was beaten to the ground and covered his head to shield himself from the blows. As the other student continued to throw punches, he challenged the white teen to say the derogatory term again. The fight allegedly took place Monday (Oct. 31) at Olathe West High School in Kansas.

In footage shared online during the week, other students claimed the white pupil and his father regularly used the word “n**ger” to refer to Black people. Today (Nov. 3), the Black teen, who asked to be identified as “TJ,” sat down exclusively with the Kansas City Defender to discuss the situation. “My name is TJ. I was a junior at Olathe West,” he began. The student was supposedly expelled from the school after the altercation. He continued, “My experience at Olathe West was, like, the racism’s there. A lot of kids just walk around, going around with that N-word like it’s normal to them, like it’s OK. It’s just, like, it’s a part of their vocabulary” he explained.

TJ added, “Last year, before this situation happened, there was a situation where [he] said the word. Like, said it. [I] heard it directly. And I went to the office, to the administration and told them.” The former student said he tried to make the faculty aware “that the word was being used by a white individual.” TJ shared that his white counterpart faced no consequences and was allowed to remain in school.

Off-camera, the interviewer asked the Black student how it made him feel to know he took the proper measures by going to the school’s administration, yet nothing was done to stop the racial slur from being used. TJ responded by saying he tried to avoid coming in contact with the white student even though they were at the same school. Toward the end of the roughly three-minute interview, the Kansas teen noted that trying so hard to get help but being dismissed by authority figures can lead to a build-up of anger. The video of the fight has since been removed from social media.

Last year, the same Kansas high school made headlines when a white student was photographed holding a racist homecoming proposal sign.

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