Washington high school yearbooks feature ‘ACAB’ sign, art of police assault

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A pair of Washington state high school yearbooks featured pro-Black Lives Matter, anti-police photos and artwork — with one even including information on how to donate to the controversial movement.

At Woodinville High School in the Seattle suburbs, the yearbook featured an image of seven students attending a Black Lives Matter protest and carrying signs with messages like: “Use your white privilege to end white privilege” and “Why is ending racism so controversial?”.

One of the students posed for the photo while holding a sign bearing the letters “ACAB”. The acronym for “All Cops Are Bastards” has become a rallying cry among supporters of the “Defund the Police” movement, as well as supporters of the radical far-left group Antifa.

According to Seattle talk show host Jason Rantz, who first reported on the yearbooks, the photo was not only published in the keepsake, but was featured in a video collage at the school’s graduation ceremony last week.

Northshore School District spokesperson Lisa Youngblood Hall claimed to Rantz that staffers responsible for putting the yearbook together did not understand what the phrase “ACAB” meant.

“Honestly many other staff members had to ask what it meant once the concern was brought to our attention,” Hall told Rantz in an email. “The situation was addressed with staff who are embarrassed and apologetic about including the image and the unintended impact of this lack of oversight.”

In Bonney Lake, about fifty miles south of Woodinville, the yearbook included a section devoted to BLM, which it called “The Protests That Changed the World”. A brief timeline of significant events in the life of the movement was followed by a line directing interested readers to donate to BLM at its website.

The opposite page was devoted to a student illustration titled “Liberty and Justice for All.” The drawing features a riot police officer raising his baton to strike a kneeling black woman while a white woman attempts to protect her.

Sumner-Bonney Lake School District spokesperson Elle Warmuth told Rantz in an email that the donation solicitation should not have been included, but defended the rest of the content — including the “award-winning BLHS student artwork.”

“With the purpose, in part, to chronicle events, issues, pop culture and student life during any given school year, yearbooks often serve as a historical publication,” Warmuth said in an email.

“Our yearbook standards reflect this purpose in highlighting a variety of topics written in either fact-based or opinion-based formats. The Black Lives Matter message presented a factual background of the movement and timeline of events.”

Warmuth also noted that the yearbook included a “balance” in political content, including an interview with the school’s conservative student body president.

The yearbooks were published amid a raging controversy over the teaching in K-12 schools of lessons based on critical race theory, which states that America’s laws and institutions are rooted in racism and white supremacy.

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