It’s late in the school day, and you’ve been dying to use the bathroom all period until finally, your teacher finishes their lecture and lets you go. Being in your English class in the C hall, it doesn’t take you long to reach your destination. You open the door and to your horror, you see the bathroom walls, floors, urinals, toilets and mirrors crudely graffitied with markers. Slurs and offensive phrases litter every surface you lay your eyes on. The real shock is that it’s not a surprise to you. It’s just another day in Azle.

Any teacher, staff and student who walks the halls could tell you that this behavior and language is not uncommon. In fact, it’d be uncommon to not hear it in the halls or in classrooms at least once on a given day. Many will tell you that they are expressing their freedom of speech, or insist that the words are harmless and they don’t mean to promote an exclusive environment. However, many victims of the hazardous culture in Azle can tell you that the intentions don’t matter. Harm is done, and whether it is intentional or not, a hateful environment is created, and people are hurt, emotionally and even physically, with little to no repercussions to those who continually make it a habit to harass others.

Students may claim that offending others with slurs or phrases just means their targets are sensitive or thin-skinned, but they fail to realize that keeping others accountable is what prevents the offensive speech from turning into something more—something physical. Throughout my high school career, I have endured years of harassment based on racial prejudice. In my sophomore year, I experienced my first and only physical assault in which I was pinned to the ground and called a racial slur unprovoked while reading posted announcements in the middle of the band hall. I had no idea how to think of the situation. I felt confused and conflicted whether to bring it to the attention of someone I trust. Eventually, after some thought, I brought it to my friends, and they shrugged the situation off, making me think that maybe I was overreacting. That what I felt wasn’t justified. But after months of thinking and interacting with the person who assaulted me, I realized it was a larger problem than I allowed myself to previously believe, and I finally talked to my parents and staff about what happened.

In the span of a few months, I had meetings with the Vice Principal, my band director, and my mom discussing what I experienced and how it affected me. In a discussion about what I would like done, I had the option to press charges for assault. At the time, I believed that because this was the only time I had heard of the perpetrator physically hurting someone, I should be “the bigger person” and decided to not report it. Following this decision, both my assaulter, his parents, the band director, the Vice Principal, my parents and I had a meeting over Zoom (as this was the summer following our “extended spring break”) to present and evaluate the problem. When asked if he remembers physically assaulting me, he claimed that he did not, but did remember repeatedly calling me slurs for months (as this was another issue I brought forward to the staff). And because I had hesitation for over two weeks (the maximum amount of time that school cameras can keep footage), they were not able to refer to them, and categorized the argument as a typical “he said- she said” and did not follow it up. At the end of the meeting, he left with no repercussions besides being revoked a leadership position for the next marching season, as that would have been his second year as a section leader. At the time, I was still frustrated, but ready to move on from the situation.

Later, after most of the band became aware of what happened through word-of-mouth, others began to come forward about their own hateful, threatening interactions with the same person. Tons of people came forward about being sexually assaulted, harassed, or assaulted by the boy who had done it to me. When multiple people tried to go to the school staff to report him, they were eventually sent away, claiming to be starting a “witch hunt.” As a whole, the perpetrator, when interacting with him, seemed entirely unapologetic. After our own meeting discussing the issue, I later learned that he bragged to a close friend about not being punished and that he “got away” with assaulting me. He remembered assaulting me and assaulted others, and I began to feel regret for not pressing charges. What if this happens while he is in college and no one believes the victim because it will seem as if this is the first time this has occurred? Not to mention he didn’t even have a school driven punishment (detention, ISS, suspension, etc.) for what he did to me and others for the four years he was in high school, so his record will be empty while attending college as well. His lack of punishment has provided him a measure of entitlement, and it puts others in danger.

What he did to me and others was easily preventable and punishable, but because of the hateful environment that permeates our school culture, his behavior has been deemed permissible through inaction. And this was only the story of a single person in Azle that I and others had the unfortunate opportunity to come into contact with. There is no true way of knowing how many people speak and behave in similar ways as this one person. But mine and others’ stories along with the graffiti done in the bathrooms show that this is an issue that needs to change. It is not up to the victims of hate in Azle to change this behavior, it is instead a communal responsibility that every student, staff, and teacher must accept to stop it from continuing any further.