A group of Dutch high school students recently came under fire after appearing to make light of the coronavirus outbreak with a racist photo shoot.
As the Independent reported, nineteen students from Belgium's Sin-Paulus Campus College Waregem were pictured wearing traditional Chinese outfits and posing with a homemade sign reading, "Corona Time".
In the picture, some of the teens are wearing men's and women's traditional outfits, while a few others are dressed to resemble pandas. One of the people holding the cardboard sign, which features a drawing of a person wearing a facial mask, is wearing blue latex gloves.
Standing in the second row, the teen can be seen pulling at the corners of her eyes with her fingers. This is considered a derogatory and mocking gesture directed towards people of East Asian descent.
On Twitter, the racist pic has been retweeted nearly 10,000 times, and thousands of users have flocked to the comments to express their disgust at the students' actions.
"That's some high-effort racism," this person wrote. "Somebody had to go out and buy all those hats."
Another added, "I’d really like to know the story behind this photo because I have so, so, sooo many questions about what everyone involved was thinking."
The group, which addresses racism against the Asian community in the country, wrote that, "the school has silently removed the photos, but this certainly does not solve the problem and shows once again how much it is necessary to deal with racism and discrimination in education."
"The fact that you approve of this kind of behavior and promote it yourself on your channels is far from responsible and shows that something is wrong with you."
“Unbelievable," she captioned the post. "How can people get it into their head [that it is ok] to put this on, make the board, pose for the photo including gloves and pulling eyes… that this school in Belgium with the slogan ‘Warm Heart, Fresh Look, Open Mind’ approved and published."
"It looks like that [sic] they don’t take this seriously. The post is offensive, hurtful and it does cause harm."
The school explained to The Independent that the photo was taken as part of a "100 days celebration," in which those in their final year "celebrate the end of their secondary education in a carnivalesque way. They choose an outfit long beforehand, in this case even long before there was any mention of the coronavirus.
"The students alluded to the recent events in a playful way by adding a sign. Neither the school team, nor the students involved, have ever had the intention of adopting a condescending or offensive attitude."
"Neither the school team, nor the students involved have ever had the intention of adopting a condescending or offensive attitude. Nonetheless, the school would like to express its apologies publicly and explicitly through this statement. We did not estimate the consequences of publishing this picture correctly and we regret having offended certain population groups by it."
h/t: Independent
