School officials in Newport Beach, California, have their work cut out for them. On Sunday, they announced that, working alongside law enforcement, they’re officially investigating photos that have gone viral on social media. The photos in question show a group of teenagers smiling as they pose with their arms extended in what appears to be a Nazi salute.
Sound familiar?
What is it with high schoolers and the Nazi salute? You might remember the scandal out of a Wisconsin high school a few months ago, where a prom photo appeared to show a group of teenage boys doing the salute (which, for the record, resulted in no actual punishments). Minnesota teens also went viral recently, for a Nazi-themed invitation to a school dance.
This story is equally disturbing, if not more so. Not only are these grinning teens doing what appears to be the Nazi salute, but the plastic cups in front of them have been arranged into a swastika.
Ava Rose, a YouTuber with a significant following, posted several Snapchat images reportedly leaked from the party, which portrayed the teens with the swastika cups and salute. From there, it really went viral, with thousands of likes and retweets.
Here are her tweets (with the disclaimer that these images are extremely disturbing):
As evidenced in the screenshots, some photos had captions including “ultimate rage” and “German rage cage.”
As reported by Yahoo Lifestyle, several teens in the photo have been identified as Newport Harbor High School students, in addition to several students from other high schools. The party appears to have happened off-campus.
Newport-Mesa Unified School District President Charlene Metoyer said:
“We have a concern both for the physical health of students who are underage drinking as well as the mental health of our students or their friends that thought this was an OK thing to do. More should’ve been done to make sure the students recognize the severity of the symbols they were using. It is not something funny. It’s a very, very serious situation.”
Katrina Foley, the mayor of Costa Mesa, California, gave a statement about the incident on Facebook, including the following:
“There is no place for hateful symbols of swastikas and Nazi salutes in our community … this abhorrent anti-Semitic activity is divisive, unbecoming of our community and leads ultimately to hate and discrimination.”
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, aptly and directly told the Los Angeles Times, “This is an insult to the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust ... It’s also an insult to the many thousands of families in Southern California whose loved ones in the Greatest Generation fought, bled and died to defeat the Nazis and defeat the swastika.”
Without a doubt, the images (and their related texts) are insulting, grossly anti-Semitic, and, at best, deeply ignorant.
How do you think schools (or law enforcement) should handle this behavior?