“ Th e reactions and words of students posting threatening comments online is not how the confl ict is repaired. ” of the public shaming might be less likely to heed criticism because under the guise of raising awareness, public callouts shift from chastising problematic behavior to attacking the individual, leading to a defensive reaction. What could have been an opportunity to discuss culture and stereotypes at M-A was overshadowed by an onslaught of social media shaming, resulting in restorative justice sessions to address the incident, according to Losekoot’s email. ***** Another fl urry of outraged social media posts in the M-A “ Identifying controversy is exciting, especially when the identifi er can act as merely a messenger, therefore avoiding responsibility for the off ensive material. ” community occurred several weeks later. In our winter issue of the Mark, we published an article detailing M-A’s history of race riots. Th e magazine spread included a photo of a poster from 1967 that threatened violence using the n-word, which we included because it was a shocking visual of how fraught the community was during this time. Despite there being a caption, the poster was off ensive to those who were fl ipping through the magazine; some were outraged by the words and message of the poster. After reading the article that accompanied the poster, many of those who were originally off ended felt that it was important to the discussion of M-A’s past. However, not all responses to the publication of the poster were so understanding. Immediately following Mark distribution several students posted pictures of the poster to social media, sometimes obscuring the caption. As a result, many were confused if the poster’s racist message was something the journalism class or administration was advocating. Still, instead of clarifying this confusion, many continued to circulate the poster online, further taking it out of context. For instance, on Nextdoor, one community member posted the image, saying “I am beyond pissed off can someone please explain why regardless of any stupid project [...] they would print something like this to distribute.” Th e poster was meant to incite an angry reaction directed at the horrible reality of our past, but the rapid spread of misinformation on social media created anger that had nowhere to go. As a result, the anger was channelled towards the inclusion of the poster itself or 13 M-A as a school, overshadowing the article that recounted M-A’s race riots in depth. Instead of serving as an informative visual within the article, the poster quickly became viral within the M-A community, calling for misdirected outrage and denunciation. ***** Too often people on social media don’t stop to wonder if they have the whole story because, unlike in real life, there are no repercussions if they are wrong. Th is only makes it harder for real, constructive conversations to take place. Th ough the poster did genuinely off end members of the M-A community, and some concluded that it should not have been depicted at all, the Th e Nextdoor post condemning the inclusion of a poster from the 1967 Menlo-Atherton race riots in the last issue of the Mark.
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