Top Cape Town school hit by hurtful, racist Instagram posts

Cape Town’s prestigious Westerford High School has apologised “unreservedly for the pain and trauma” that a racial incident has caused to its learners, staff and people outside the school.

The Rondebosch school said in a statement on Friday it regrets the racist and hate speech incident that was targeted at black pupils, saying it caused “immense hurt and trauma”.

The school said it will continue to “interrogate the systemic and individual sources of oppression in ourselves, our school, our society and globally”. 

According to the statement that’s signed by the school’s governing body chair, Solange Rosa, and principal, Mark Smith, the school is investigating the origin of “offensive, hurtful racist comments” tagging its black pupils on social media.

The school trended on social media this week after an Instagram account, named Grade8a_2023, depicted images of slaves. The post tagged some of the school’s black learners, with a caption reading: “I found your family”.

Another image shows black slaves chained at the hands and neck with a caption: “who wishes all these black people could leave our classes and go back to where they came from”. 

On Thursday, the school held a meeting with grade 8 pupils to provide counselling to those affected or traumatised by the posts on Instagram. 

“We deeply regret the recent incident of racism and hate speech on social media which targeted learners and staff of colour at Westerford High School, causing immense hurt and trauma. The process of uncovering who is responsible for these reprehensible posts is under way and being investigated with the utmost urgency.”

The school said it had since suspended the entire school programme from June 8 until June 12 “to give learners and staff support and time to process the painful trauma that this has caused, specifically for people of colour”. 

“We acknowledge that our history of apartheid and the ongoing inequality and racism in our country and globally has wrought broad suffering. We are deeply saddened by this incident and will continue to interrogate the systemic and individual sources of oppression in ourselves, our school, our society and globally.” 

The school said it is following its diversity and inclusivity policy, “which clearly lays out a process for dealing with racist incidents timeously and effectively”.

The school said it is also being guided by national laws on hate speech.

It has since consulted an IT expert to try to identify the perpetrator and establish “whether that person is from within our school community”.

“We want to state unequivocally that we take such matters extremely seriously at Westerford. Over the years, we have sought to build a school that actively strives to provide a psychologically and physically safe space, where social equality and antiracism is built into the daily functioning of the school and the ethos of our school community.” 

In 2020 the school adopted an antiracism policy statement and a diversity and inclusivity policy.

“We also established a transformation platform where parents, staff, old Westerfordians and learners can contribute to building an inclusive, safe, nurturing educational space for all. We apologise unreservedly for the pain and trauma that this incident has caused to many of our learners, staff, parents, fellow South Africans and to those well beyond our borders. 

Education spokesperson Bronagh Hammond said if the school account was hacked, the school would need to consider what action can be taken against the perpetrator. If a pupil was involved, disciplinary action would be instituted. 

“The school has reported it to the Film and Publication Board as well,” she added.

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