What a Racist Instagram Account Did to the Town of Albany

KQED's Forum

KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2023

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2017 students at Albany High School in the East Bay became aware of a private instagram account created by a student, and followed by just over a dozen more, containing viciously racist posts about fellow classmates. The disputes about why it happened, how to hold the creator and the followers accountable, and what to do about the anger, shame and fear caused by the posts tore through the school and the town. “Whatever you believed about Albany, about America, about teenagers, racism, sexism, social media, punishment and the public discourse on each of these topics, the story of the Instagram account could be marshaled as evidence. It was the incident that explained everything and yet also the incident that couldn’t be explained,” writes Dashka Slater. We talk to her about her five years of reporting on the story and her book, “Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed.” Guests: Dashka Slater, author, "Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed," and "The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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1:08.7	From KQED.
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1:29.0	In 2017, near the chaotic start of the Trump administration, a student at Albany High School created an Instagram account for his friends and began posting viciously racist
1:34.1	memes about black students. We're talking jokes about nooses and neo-Nazi fake race science.
1:40.1	When the account came to light, a firestorm erupted over how to hold the creator and
1:44.0	his Instagram followers accountable,
1:46.0	and not unrelatedly, what to do about the anger, shame, and fear caused by the posts.
1:50.0	How did such wildly racist stuff even get into the minds and phones of the town's teenagers?
1:56.0	Acclaimed journalist Doshka Slater spent years reporting on what happened,
2:00.0	and she's written a new book,
2:01.8	accountable. She joins us right after this news.
	...

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