This guest post submitted by Newton South senior Amy Xiao
On the morning of April 15, nearly thirty unknown hackers infiltrated a Newton South AP Chinese class. Despite the school-mandated password protection on the meeting, these individuals subjected the class to a slew of racist insults for over five minutes. They were not simply being vulgar and offensive—they specifically targeted the students and the teacher through racial slurs and loud mock-Chinese.
Unfortunately, while individuals in the class contacted the administration of this event, Newton South has yet to inform the greater school community of this hate crime. We are disappointed by Newton South’s lack of transparency; just because this type of event is happening in other school settings across the country does not mean that we cannot be outraged.
This incidence of “zoombombing” is a reflection of a larger wave of Anti-Asian sentiment surging across the globe. As evidenced by everything from the physical assaults against Asian individuals to the popularization of the term “China Virus,” it is no longer an option to simply gloss over racism being directed toward Asians and Asian-Americans. People within our community have been viciously attacked for their race and it is critical that we acknowledge that.
In the likely case we cannot track down these hackers, we as a community should take this opportunity to gain a better understanding of the scope and intensity of the hate pervading our society.
Thank you Amy for alerting the larger Newton community about this incident. I agree that incidents of overt racism like this should be acknowledged clearly, forcefully and publicly by the school administration. Quietly sweeping it under the rug does no one any good and sends an unintended message that its no big deal.
Amy. Thanks for publishing this disturbing post. I agree with Jerry. I hope Newton’s Asian population will come to realize that the overwhelming majority of their fellow residents are appalled and sickened by this particular incident and so many others like it since the number of Zoom meeting exploded after the shutdown; but unified condemnation will be muted, if people outside the Asian community are unaware it even happened.
Two Zoom meetings I’ve been attending have been “Zoombombed” during the past two weeks , but the ramifications were far less consequential .
Newton South has cancelled all zoom classes today.
This just arrived from Newton South’s principal Joel Stembridge:
Dear Newton South community,
I am saddened and upset to share with you that yesterday a group of intruders joined a Zoom session of our AP Chinese class and proceeded to spew vile, hate-filled images and speech directed at our students and teacher. It was clearly racist, hateful, and horrible.
We immediately notified the Newton Police Department who are investigating the incident. We also notified families of students in the class, and are working with our teacher and students to gather more information. Initial reports indicate that the intruders were likely not from Newton, although that could change as we learn more.
This was a traumatic experience for our teacher and students, and we will continue to offer support to everyone involved. To be clear, an attack on members of our NSHS Asian-American community is an attack on all of us. We will be working on a plan for responding – I will share more about this soon.
We have hosted hundreds of successful zoom meets over the past weeks and have updated our security settings as new information has become available from Zoom on specific ways to secure our live classroom interactions. However, we have learned that Zoom links created prior to recent security updates may not have all the security features turned on, such as the waiting room and password features. Our Information Technology department is constantly working to increase security and to stay up-to-date on all recommendations to secure our virtual classrooms.
Out of concern for student and staff safety, I am cancelling all zoom meetings for today so that our IT department can work with faculty and staff to review our security protocols, re-verify settings, and refresh all zoom links.
This is a trying time for all of us, and events such as these underscore the fragility of this new environment in which we are working. We’ll have more work to do to ensure that we can continue to support students and build a safe, connected online community.
As always, thank you for your partnership.
Warmly,
Joel Stembridge
Principal, Newton South High School
Very good of Amy to post her comments. Also, good message by Mr. Stembridge. I’ll bet he had to get some information and approvals before issuing a public statement. A sign of the times that anybody can be faster off the block than the person in charge!
Amy, thanks so much for bringing this to the community’s attention. These racists attacks must be addressed immediately.
The Newton Public Schools IT department have been working super hard behind the scenes. I have been impressed with the team, knowing that there is so much to deal with and they are amazing.
Amy I am so sorry this happened to you, the other students, and the teacher. It is horrible and pathetic that there are people that behave this way. Hopefully the lessons learned from this will mean it never happens in another class.
So these zoolanders zoombombed the meeting for five mins? Did I read that correct?
Quick question for the public.
Why didn’t the teacher immediately end the zoom? He/she should comment on why they let this happen for five mins. Teachers should know better.
@Fred. I think you’re playing a bit of the Monday Morning quarterback here. I can recall more than one incident when I became mentally frozen in place by a totally unexpected verbal sucker punch that took me several minutes to respond to. I’m pretty certain the teacher was as surprised as we were when the two meetings I referred to earlier were “Zoombombed”. In both instances, it took several minutes (perhaps 4 or 5) to remove the offensive material and resume the meeting.
Maybe it is time to express support for Asian students in our neighborhood. Maybe , just a quick stop: I heard what happened at South, I want you to know it is terrible and hope you are OK. I did just that. The mother was so touched. She also told me she and her family have been afraid to go out for fear of reprisals (I don’t see them that much and had not noticed!). Let’s be thoughtful.
@Amy Xiao thank you for standing up for what’s right. Your courage & leadership point to a bright future for our Society.
@Amy thank you for standing up for what is right. Your courage & leadership point to a brighter future for our Society.
There have been tons of documented incidences of Asian individuals getting harrassed as though they are the masterminds behind the virus. I am not sure if it is an American epidemic that so many suffer from Simpleton Syndrome.
Ran into an administrator friend at Wegmans. Story is deeper than being portrayed here. Guess the teacher left the security settings open. Furthermore Let the problem escalate without shutting down zoom. She said this will be swept under carpet.
Thanks for posting Amy. Never stop fighting the good fight!