‘Stop Ignoring Racism’: High School Students Lead Walkout, Community Sounds Off on Santa Barbara School Board over Blackface Incident

Black community members criticized the Santa Barbara Unified School District during its board meeting on Tuesday night and demanded action in response to the recent “blackface incident” at San Marcos High School. 

Last month, a group of four white students at San Marcos re-created an AI meme featuring Black children and posted it on TikTok. They darkened their skin to match the children’s skin tone and captioned the post with ninja emojis, which is widely used on social media as a stand-in for the N-word. 

Students at San Marcos and Dos Pueblos High School led walkouts earlier in the day to protest ongoing racist incidents across the district. The walkouts bled into the packed board room: students, parents, teachers, and advocates filled the space with signs: “Stop Ignoring Racism,” “We Want Justice,” and “Nothing Changes Unless Policies Do.”

A hush fell over the room on Tuesday night when Superintendent Hilda Maldonado first addressed the incident. “What happened was racist and harmful,” she said. “I am committed to listening.”

Attendees grew louder as public comment ensued. Tensions were high, with speakers expressing frustration over a pattern of racist incidents in the district being met with seemingly little action to address them, despite the district’s initiatives to combat anti-blackness. 

Several speakers took to the podium to blast Maldonado and the board for failing to protect Black students and implement stronger consequences for racist behavior. 

In response to the San Marcos incident, Principal Dare Holdren said the school contacted the offenders’ families and “are working to educate the students about the impact of their actions,” he said, but did not disclose any details about the consequences that were imposed. 

The picture was taken in Black Studies teacher Abel Gonzalez’s classroom when he wasn’t there, Gonzalez said. But he did not find out until district administrators came into his class to talk to his students about it. He said he was “upset and hurt” about the lack of communication.

“As an Afro-Latino teacher and former S.B. Unified student, I’m offended that you don’t care about me and my people,” he told the board. “I know you don’t care because you guys keep letting it happen and don’t fix it.”

It took two weeks for the district to notify parents, after the image had already spread across campus and was reported to the school’s administration, parent Lauren Ortiz said. 

“That’s so disrespectful,” she said.

Students who cut class or are tardy face worse consequences than those who commit racist acts, who get a “slap on the wrist,” students claimed. 

“I’m here today as a Black student to say that the Santa Barbara Unified School District has handled this entire situation horribly,” said one student, who identified herself as Sedenia. “Instead of making your Black students feel safe, you have made us aware that we cannot trust you.”

The blackface incident adds onto a string of several other racist acts in the district, including a substitute teacher reading the N-word aloud, another teacher treating the use of N-word as a fine in a “swear jar,” and claims of white students bullying their Black peers through physical attacks, slurs, and making monkey noises at them. 

Speakers at the meeting recounted a long history fighting the same battles, dating back to racial incidents in the ’90s and past movements to implement ethnic studies. 

Nothing has changed, speakers emphasized. Instead, adequate consequences are still lacking, and a “vicious cycle” is unfolding, they said.

Dr. Charlotte Gullap-Moore, who noted she was speaking in a personal capacity not representative of her position as a Santa Barbara City College trustee, claimed the students posted the image to “inflict harm and spread hate.”

“When a nation refuses to confront institutional and structural racism, the harm does not stay contained; it escalates,” Gullap-Moore said. “Santa Barbara Unified has watched that escalation in its own schools.” 

When Board President Bill Banning attempted to tell Gullap-Moore she exceeded her time for public comments, cries from the audience accused him of “cutting time” to discuss racism.

Speakers shamed the board and called on them to expel the students who portrayed “blackface” and to hold a special board meeting to immediately put Black students “on the agenda.” Simone Akila Ruskamp, an executive director for Healing Justice Santa Barbara — a partner of the district — said she urged Banning to put an item on the agenda to address student demands, but that did not happen. 

Students are demanding a district wide zero-tolerance policy for racism, expansion of ethnic studies and racial justice curriculum across schools, and better efforts to retain Black teachers and staff, among other things. 

“The style of the district leadership is to hide embarrassing and inappropriate situations until there is such a public outcry that the board is forced to deal with it,” said Joel Block, a teacher at La Cuesta Continuation School. 

Boardmembers seemed shell-shocked by the end of public comment. “I am speechless,” said boardmember Sunita Beall. Still, many boardmembers concurred that attempts to address racism in the district have been inadequate and agreed to discuss the issue at a future meeting.

“Although it may sound hollow at this point, I intend to ask our superintendent to place an item on an upcoming board meeting when we have enough time to give this issue more attention,” Banning said.