Advertisement

Violent White Supremacy on the Rise: White Kansas HS Students Threaten to Hang Black Players, Taunt w/ Blackface Babydoll & Attempt to Raid Black Player’s Locker Room After Game

A Kansas basketball game turned violently racist when white students threatened to hang Black players and attempted to raid & attack them in the locker room.

VALLEY CENTER, KS – A Kansas School district is under major fire after white students at Valley Center HS launched vicious, KKK-era racist attacks against the mostly Black basketball team at Topeka High School. 

“First, their student section called one of our students the N word. Our player reacted and then they started chants calling him a p*ssy. Their parents were also calling our students and our parents racial slurs. Their student section was passing and waving around a Black baby doll,” Sophomore girl’s basketball player Jo’Mhara Benning told The Defender.

“By the time the game ended it got so bad that their student section tried to raid our locker room. They came running at us, it was definitely very scary, they were trying to attack us.”

Topeka High School boys basketball coach Geo Lyons told The Defender he has never witnessed anything remotely close to this before and was absolutely horrified. 

Advertisement

“They said they were going to hang our students. They had students out in the parking lot doing donuts in the parking lot saying they would hang our players,” he told us. He also said absolutely no action was taken on behalf of the Valley Center admin to try and stop the viciously racist events throughout the game – and that no one has reached out to him since it happened. 

“Nobody from Valley Center has reached out to me. I haven’t heard one word from the principal, the superintendent, the coach, the athletic director, no one. I don’t even want an apology at this point,” he said. 

Coach Lyons said he wants to see immediate major action taken to hold the school accountable. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BttT2J1ajcc
News segment on the racist event from local news station KSN.

Topeka High School Basketball Coach Geo Lyons has started a petition to remove fans from Valley Center HS sporting events, as a first step to holding the district accountable. Sign the petition here.

This is a developing story.

Defender News Briefing

America's #1 newsletter for Black politics, culture tech and world news.

Smart, brief, and straight to your inbox

You can unsubscribe at any time. Have a question? Contact us or read our privacy policy for more info.

Author

he/him/his or they/them/theirs.

Ryan has a diverse background including working at one of the nation’s most esteemed Black think tanks, one of Chicago’s top B2B Tech PR agencies, a top 3 global PR firm, and founding Kansas City’s largest Black-led direct action group during the 2020 uprisings. During Ryan’s professional career he’s consulted brands such as Facebook, Samsung, Amazon and Google.

He is a recipient of the Civil and Human Rights Award recognized by the Urban League of Kansas City, Southern Christian Leadership Conference and NAACP. He has also engaged in a number of public talks as a prison industrial complex Abolitionist thinker including on; NPR, PBS, a Kansas City Art Institute Lecture, a lecture at University of the Arts London, the Annual International Symposium (Digital Ethics for a Sustainable Society), as well as the T-Mobile Speaker Series.

Community support is the lifeblood to the sustainability & growth of our urgent work among Black youth. Will you help us by becoming a Defender?

Your new monthly donation goes 24x further right now