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Stuyvesant High School Students Disciplined After Performing in Racist Rap

By DNAinfo Staff on March 3, 2011 10:44am

By Gabriela Resto-Montero

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN — A group of Stuyvesant High School students who videotaped themselves in a video rapping racist lyrics about a fellow student and then sent it to her have been punished for their behavior, the New York Daily News reported.

In the video posted on YouTube by a former Stuyvesant student, a group of white males take turns dropping verses attacking a black, female classmate.

"Your f------g dad is gone, you don't even know where he's at yo....you don't know about that cuz you're black," one of the boys raps towards the end of the nearly six minute long video.

Department of Education officials confirmed that the video prompted an investigation but would not say how many of the students featured in the clip attend Stuyvesant or how they were being disciplined, the News reported.

A group of Stuyvesant High School students featured in a racist rap video were reportedly suspended Wednesday after an investigation into the incident by the Department of Education.
A group of Stuyvesant High School students featured in a racist rap video were reportedly suspended Wednesday after an investigation into the incident by the Department of Education.
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Josh Williams / DNAinfo

But students at the school Wednesday said that the racist rappers had been suspended, the paper reported.

"The video contains racially inflammatory comments that are hurtful and inappropriate," Marge Feinberg, a spokeswoman with the department, told the News.

"We are investigating this incident and will take disciplinary action against those involved," Feinberg said.

Alexis Marie Wint, 18, a former student at Stuyvesant High School, said that she posted the video on YouTube after a friend, who was apparently the target of the group's rap, sent her the video she received on Facebook.

Wint said that she left the school a year early to attend Bard College in part because of the racial hostility she felt at Stuyvesant.

Stuyvesant students, both former and current, have taken to Wint's tumblr page to discuss the video with some calling for her to let the incident blow over.

Others supported the decision to publicize the video, writing that it showed a prevalent attitude at the school.

"... how daunting it was to deal with some 3000 some-odd kids who ALL had that mentality, who all thought it was A-Ok to spew the N-word and make chicken jokes, and education jokes, and knew nothing of my history, up against the less than 2% of us who were actually black," wrote a user called Sapphrikah on Wint's blog.

One of Manhattan's most elite public high schools, Stuyvesant requires that students pass a specialized entrance exam before gaining admittance.

There were 12 black students in this year's class of 850 freshmen, the News reported.