"While singing along to a rap song in Kloey’s car, Grace, who is white, used a hateful racial slur for what she said was the very first time."

"Kloey, also white, posted the photo on Snapchat to commemorate the occasion, spelling out the slur in the caption.... Kloey’s post helped set off a violent clash the following Monday that involved students, teachers and police officers. The scuffle ended with a black 16-year-old girl being tackled and arrested. That prompted the school’s handful of black students to demand that the school take on its culture of racism. Their efforts led to messy, uncomfortable conversations that would have seemed impossible not long ago. Sitting in a Mexican cafe three months after the unrest, Kloey struggled to explain why she had felt so comfortable using the racial slur. Maybe it was because she had a relative who would sometimes use the word when talking about black people and then laugh, she said, so it did not seem meanspirited. Perhaps it was ignorance or selfishness, she said. 'I think it comes from a place of racism,' said Abang, the girl who was tackled and arrested, recalling that she had told Kloey back in middle school not to say the word, but that she had continued to say it anyway.... To make matters worse, after Kloey’s post had gone viral, two more Snapchat posts by other white students, both using the same offensive racial slur, began to circulate that day. One was from a white student who posted a selfie flashing his middle finger, with a caption that accused Owatonna’s black students of 'playing the black card.'"

From "Few Talked About Race at This School. Then a Student Posted a Racist Slur./When white students at a Minnesota school posted a slur to Snapchat, black classmates demanded action. Their efforts led to uncomfortable conversations about race" (NYT).