Students' racist video sends shock waves through North Carolina school

RALEIGH, North Carolina -- A video of three North Carolina students making offensive comments is sending shock waves through the school system there.

The school district is aware of the video that some Leesville Road Middle School students created and calls it "concerning."

Parents learned about the video in a phone message from principal Cindy Kremer, but many haven't seen it. The students use derogatory terms for blacks and Latinos, and are heard to say "go back to the fields of Alabama, go back to the factories in Mississippi. You don't deserve freedom."

The hostility extended to Arab and Jewish people, as well.

It doesn't appear that the school was the setting for the video, which appears to have been shot inside a home.

Sister station ABC11 in Raleigh blurred the students' faces, which are clearly visible in the original. School officials say they have identified the students and taken appropriate action.

Kremer sent a phone message to parents saying the video violates student standards and that the video's message will not be condoned.

"Three of our students posted a music video on a music app that was shared with others," she said in the call. "The students' video was a racist rant filled with racist imagery. Not long after the song was posted online, it was removed. Copies continued in circulation."

Kremer went on to ask parents to talk to their children about the importance of living and working together in the community, and she said the school will do the same.

One parent who we showed the video to was taken aback.

"I'm actually pretty shocked by it, I think that's horrifying," mom Luann Grochowski said. "It's sad to me when kids behave that way, especially in the times that we live in now. I think it's really appalling."

Kremer said a number of students and parents expressed concern.

Grochowski said the incident was an indicator that parents and administrators needed to start looking more closely at what's going on inside the schools.

"It reflects a certain type of mindset and character that needs some attention paid to it for sure," she said. "It's everyone's responsibility in the community to follow up on stuff like that,and to make sure we're really talking to our kids and making sure that they are becoming the human beings that we all know and want them to be."