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An exclusive Los Angeles private academy’s attempt to show its support for Black Lives Matter on Instagram blew up in its face, when they quickly got deluged with responses claiming it is a racist institution. The Brentwood School, which boasts Hollywood stars like Jonah Hill and Adam Levine as graduates, had its social media quickly …
An exclusive Los Angeles private academy’s attempt to show its support for Black Lives Matter on Instagram blew up in its face, when they quickly got deluged with responses claiming it is a racist institution.
The Brentwood School, which boasts Hollywood stars like Jonah Hill and Adam Levine as graduates, had its social media quickly get filled with allegations of ugly incidents, such as black students allegedly being forced to learn a “cotton picking dance,” and white students alleged to have openly used the N-word while singing rap tunes.
“In the scant instances where faculty gets involved, my white peers got light lectures or slaps on the wrists for their foul misconduct,” claimed one respondent, who described themselves online as the “token” underprivileged black kid at the school, which costs more than $40,000 a year.
“Meanwhile, kids like me, who did close to nothing wrong in comparison, got, ya know … suspended or expelled as soon as possible, no questions asked.”
The online commenter claimed that white classmates were protected by a “porcelain aura” from consequences for misbehavior.
“Like many others here, saw firsthand that Brentwood is a toxic racist cesspool for students of color, but an ivory tower for the wealthy white elite. All the same, it was just a microcosm for white supremacy we minorities are having to face now in the real world,” they wrote.
The backlash came after the school, where celebs such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver have sent their kids, tried to participate in last week’s “Blackout” on Instagram, in which brands and influencers posted black squares to their page in support of Black Lives Matter.
Requests for comment from Brentwood School have not been immediately returned.
A message on the “No Blackout Brentwood” Instagram account said the school is holding a Zoom call with the organizers of the account and appealed for further testimonies.
Meanwhile, another respondent to the post described themselves as a former student and claimed that a teacher asked just the black upperclassmen in the choir to sing “I Know Where I’ve Been” from the musical “Hairspray.”
When they all said no to “this blatant objectification,” the teacher allegedly pointed out “the darkest girl in the room,” who happened to be Persian, and insisted she sing the song.
Another person, who identified themselves as a student who graduated in 2009, claimed they were taught “negro spirituals” in music class, including “Pick a Bale of Cotton.”
“There was literally a cotton picking dance that we learned with this song. I mean, how do you even begin to unpack how flagrantly racist this is? I had to unlearn so much bs from this school,” the alumnus wrote. “Seems like you guys need to take a pick between your very wealthy bigoted donors and your purported commitments to social justice. Where you’re landing now is embarrassing.”
One more person described Brentwood as “complicit in systemic racism.”
“In middle school, around the time that [the Jay-Z and Kanye West rap album] “Watch the Throne” came out, a lot of white kids would go around campus blasting ‘N***** in Paris’ singing along to it completely uncensored. Was I one of them? I can’t remember, but probably. The only black teacher at Brentwood at the time, Ms. Coleman, had to single-handedly organize and hold an assembly meeting in which she made a powerpoint about why white people couldn’t use the N word,” they said.
