Fact: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Truth: The reaction is not always equal.
Ms. Cary shut the door behind Hardy and sighed. I saw her shoulders rise and fall a couple times before she turned back to me with a tight smile. “Safiya, do you have any idea who might have done this?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that? Like I’m supposed to have a sixth sense for racists because I’m brown? That’s not how it works.”
“No… no one thinks that. It’s—”
“What? They hacked my column, so somehow I’m responsible?”
“Is there anyone who might have something against you? Crossing your name out is personal. That was a choice they made rather than merely reconfiguring the home page.”
Gut punch. I hadn’t thought of it that way. Like crossing out my name meant Ghost Skin was going after me, wanted to x me out literally. The only person I could think of who had something against me and would want to cut me down like that was Hardy. I opened my mouth, but before I could say anything, Ms. Cary jumped in.
“Dr. Hardy is saying that only a few people had password access to the site.”
“Wait. Wait. Hold up. What’s he implying?”
“Has anyone on staff ever shown… you know, alt-right sympathies? Sometimes kids say things to each other they won’t say in front of adults.”
Alt-right. That word, alt-right, smacked me in the chest. It seemed too, I dunno, too unreal. Too not–high school. Too I’m middle aged but live in my parents’ basement, spewing conspiracy theories and pretending to be a teenager online. It’s white supremacist, oath-taking Proud Boys storming the Capitol. It’s a Nazi rally with torches raised high in Charlottesville, Virginia. It’s shooting the Emmett Till memorial sign. It’s delusional trolls spinning conspiracy theories about pizza places and kidnappings and female presidential candidates. It’s arguing at the school board meeting that the Civil War was about “states’ rights” and that it’s cool to teach Huck Finn and say the N-word out loud because of “historical context.” The hacker was one-hundred-percent racist—but alt-right, here at our little school? Maybe it shouldn’t surprise me that other kids at school can be as horrible as some adults. It’s the adults who taught them.
“No way is it anyone on staff. Only five of us have admin powers on the site, and four of us are BIPOC and/or queer. And Rachel is Jewish. So, no.” I shook my head. “Not a chance.” I dug my heels into the uneven wooden floor, in the well-worn grooves from all the students before me. I imagined one hundred years of other kids biting their tongues, of not saying the things that should’ve been said, grinding their anger into the grainy surface, their frustration fossilized in the hallways we passed through now.
“It’s most likely a dumb prank. But until we can prove it’s not one of you, the Spectator staff will have to walk on eggshells or Dr. Hardy could pull the plug.”
“But it’s impossible to prove a negative. Besides, why would we sabotage our own paper? The only person who would be happy about the Spectator shutting down is Hardy. He and every adult in this school have network access that kids don’t. And they’re a lot whiter than everyone who works on the Spectator, which makes them more likely to be, uh, white supremacists?”
Ms. Cary’s back straightened as she clenched her jaw. Oops. Did I say that out loud? “I would tread carefully, Safiya. Every teacher’s first instinct is to help students, not hurt them. Accusing the principal or any other adult in this school is a dangerous path to take. You should know better.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. But I doubted that every single teacher at our school felt the way Ms. Cary described. The admin definitely didn’t. Ms. Cary had stood up for me for a minute, but her fighting for me clearly had limits. She had to protect herself and maybe the paper, too. I wasn’t going to win the argument, and I didn’t want to risk getting kicked off the Spectator, so I nodded and mouthed an okay.
Ms. Cary sighed. “I’ll talk to IT. Maybe they can figure out where that screed was posted from. The passwords have been changed and—”
“Wait. We’re all locked out? I mean, are you going to post everything? Some of the formatting needs admin privileges, too.”
She knit her eyebrows together. “I’ll get back to you on that. For now, let the other kids know there’s a hold on new articles. The site will be down until I can convince Dr. Hardy to get it back up. It’s been scrubbed, and as long as there isn’t any more drama and you play by his rules, I’m sure he’ll agree to it.” Her heels clacked against the floor as she walked out.
Drama? White supremacist threats weren’t “drama.” They were serious. Possibly violent. Maybe Hardy wanted to sweep the hack under the rug, ignore it like he did that racist Facebook meme from last semester. More “drama,” according to him. And when the Organization of BIPOC students wouldn’t be quiet about it, the administration turned the table, blaming the group for being uncivil, for not following procedures. The admin was big on civility and accountability… for everyone else. But as far as Hardy was concerned, only students were supposed to face consequences.
I plunked into a computer chair. Swiveled on the squeaky wheels. Maybe the admin didn’t care who was behind the hack, but I did. Hardy was looking for a scapegoat, and I refused to let it be me.