Fresno Bee screenshot

A California high school student who was reportedly part of a racist Snapchat conversation joking about slaves was beaten up last week upon his return to school.


Video footage circulating on social media shows a black student walking up to a white student who is walking down a hall. The white student attempts to avoid the black student and says, “I’m not doing anything,” but that doesn’t stop the black teen from running up on him and beginning to swing punches.

Students who attend Buchanan High School in Clovis, Calif., told the Fresno Bee that the student who caught hands was one of many who participated in a racist Snapchat conversation about slaves and used the n-word repeatedly.


On Thursday the student was returning to school after being disciplined for his role in the messages—although it is not quite clear if he was suspended or had merely been on independent study. The fight quickly broke out, but school staff intervened “within seconds,” putting an end to it, according to school district spokesperson Kelly Avants.

Avants said that student safety is of the highest priority for students on Clovis Unified campuses and that the aggressive behavior seen in the video “is absolutely unacceptable behavior.”

“What is shown on the seconds-long video appears to clearly violate the district’s student discipline policies,” Avants told the news site. “To underscore the unacceptable nature of such behavior, any student found to be in violation of our student discipline, zero tolerance or bullying policies faces disciplinary consequences.”


Avants, however, was much more tight-lipped about the details of what happened in regards to the racist conversation. The Bee notes that the district is bound by education code and student-privacy laws from detailing disciplinary actions taken against the students who took part in the Snapchat conversation.

“Obviously, we understand that people want to know all of the details,” she said of the racist conversation. “We also would hope they’re understanding of the fact that as a public school system, in working with minor students, the law is very clear in what we’re able to discuss and can’t discuss.”


In the messages, the teens called black people “slaves” and “niggers” and joked about taking a jet “over to Africa to smuggle a new one over.”

One teen shared a picture of a white slave owner whipping a slave, with the caption, “I’m punishing him.”


Yet another teen wrote, “I caught my house nigger looking at chevys on Craigslist so I lynched him and his kids.”

The district had previously called the messages “intolerable” and said that “the fullest extent of disciplinary consequences available to us will be taken.”


Read more at the Fresno Bee.