Another racist Southlake video? What we’re doing wrong, and can do right

The notion of different cultures melting into one has been applied to America almost since its founding.

But with almost every new day we’re besieged by old thinking.

There are simply a lot of base elements in this melting pot that have yet to soften.

Thus, a second disturbing Internet video of at least one white Southlake Carroll student chanting the n-word repeatedly in a car with several other youths — including one other Carroll student — after a similar video shocked the community and the conscience last fall.

How can this keep happening?

Youthful ignorance, to be sure. Cultural insulation, certainly: African-Americans make up but 2 percent of the student population in Southlake schools. Poor adult role models on the national stage, and an even worse popular culture, some of which uses the same word with fervor.

It’s a societal problem that, like so many, is amplified by the involvement of impressionable youths.

Yet, as revolting as the incidents have been, that’s how heartening the district’s and Southlake community’s responses are.

The first video last fall managed to accelerate long-held plans for a Carroll Independent School District Diversity Council. Intending to empanel a group of 40, the district received 180 applications and eventually chose 63 diverse volunteer advisers at the district and school levels. That main council is set for its second meeting Feb. 28, as its school-based counterparts gear up for their first gatherings.

A rare and profound mid-year strengthening of the Student Code of Conduct is likely.

And after the second video surfaced overnight Tuesday, district officials descended on it like a SWAT team. By midday Wednesday, an involved student had apologized, and properly mortified parents, district officers and even police were involved, with the district promising the harshest punishment allowed by law and district rules.

As Southlake Mayor Laura Hill noted in a plainspoken condemnation of the incidents on social media, though, there’s no quick fix, and the search for solutions must involve everyone.

As CISD Assistant Superintendent for Board and Community Relations Julie Thannum points out, racism and the tolerance of it are learned behaviors. They must be unlearned. Not just at school, but at home.

One Southlake resident told the Star-Telegram on Wednesday that the city and school district are “sweeping this under the carpet, and they are complicit.” We absolutely understand that angst, particularly after a second video. We’d give the city and school district more credit than that. But this is a chronic societal problem that is revealing itself to be far too endemic for all of Southlake leaders not to attack with renewed gusto today.

What will it take to win the hearts and minds of the youths who engage in this kind of behavior — or awaken their parents to it? Likely a variety of approaches: Advanced parenting. Dialogues at school, often one on one. An intolerance for intolerance in popular culture and the adult world. The kind of empathy toward hurtful words and actions that only a broader cultural and educational experience can bring.

The truth is, several youths involved in these incidents have already learned their lesson the hard way.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Nor should it.