In the months leading up to the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S., Adam Abadir fielded many questions about best practices from Baltimore City residents.
As the communications director for the city’s health department, he observed that many people were already following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance for things such as social distancing and masking. But they often contacted the department seeking advice for the most effective ways to have conversations about public health recommendations with others.
Then, in January, Abadir and his colleagues watched as Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said to a community activist at a news conference: “Shorty, pull your mask up.”
That viral moment fueled a realization for Abadir and Benjamin Jancewicz, who creates graphics and runs the department’s social media channels: Sharing information in a new way that isn’t confrontational, they noticed, would likely result in more people spreading the message.
The city’s creative social media push to encourage vaccination, using graphics with phrases such as “What the FAQ is delta?,” comes as much of the country experiences a spike in coronavirus cases. As of Friday, 64.5% of Baltimore City residents have received at least one vaccine dose.
“If you package information in a new way, that’s not as confrontational, but also a little bit funny, you’re much more likely to see that work spread,” Abadir told WTOP. “That was the genesis of the idea of using memes as a way to communicate harm reduction principles.”
The county has used that approach since early April, when it shared a graphic promoting social distancing that said, “Love your elders? Prove it.” Jancewicz said the post was part of the county’s “Get Like Me” campaign, aimed at encouraging vaccination among the city’s youth after city leaders noticed a dramatic difference in vaccine uptake in younger residents.
In an attempt to speak directly to the city’s youth, Jancewicz used lyrics from a rap song and a generic photo of a grandmother.
“We used a rather traditional-looking grandmother who’s got a smirk on her face to encourage younger folk to step up their game a little bit, and have it be a bit of a competition,” Jancewicz said. “’If I can get vaxxed then you can get vaxxed’ type of thing.”
Each new idea has several requirements: It has to be funny; it has to address a real community concern, and it has to include language that people use themselves and will share in their social circles.
One of the department’s more popular graphics came after a commenter wrote they were on a keto diet and frequently ate vegetables, so a vaccine wasn’t necessary to bolster their immune system. As a result, a graphic that says, “Salad doesn’t cure COVID, Connor” was crafted.
And that type of messaging has evolved into other graphics, such as another that says, “Ginger ale doesn’t cure COVID, Derrick!”
“A lot of these trolls that we have clapped back at find the humor in the things that we’re saying,” Jancewicz said. “[And they’ll say], ‘I actually did have some serious concerns, and I wanted to talk to somebody about that. … These are really icebreakers and they work really well.”
Most recently, the pair launched a series of infographics describing what’s known about the delta variant. While many experts and those in medical circles have explained it, Abadir said, few have been able to share what it means for people in simple terms. Hoping to clear confusion about a complicated topic, the department created a series of informative slides, beginning with one titled “What the FAQ is delta?”
The post with the graphics has 1,400 Facebook comments and has been shared more than 50,000 times.
“We wanted to make sure we give them something that not only they can laugh at, but that they can share with their friends,” Abadir said. “Because they may know somebody that doesn’t follow the rules, or doesn’t pay attention to the latest update from the Baltimore City Health Department.”
The department is always considering the best ways to share information with the public, Abadir said, and Jancewicz witnessed the success of the latest initiative firsthand. While waiting in line with his daughter at a recent vaccine clinic, Jancewicz overheard a few workers speaking in Spanish about ads they had seen in the local Spanish newspaper.
They were some the department’s memes that had been translated, and the messaging evidently worked, since the group was also in line to get vaccinated.
“It’s one thing to be able to see all of the follower counts climb, and be interviewed by different news organizations,” Jancewicz said. “But to actually see people in line for vaccination because of the stuff that we did is really, really cool.”
The Baltimore City Health Department understands the assignment.
Over the past week, the department’s social media presence has garnered widespread applausefor the way it’s using epidemiologist-endorsed memes to spread accurate information online about the coronavirus—including the delta variant, why you shouldn’t drink bleach to cure COVID-19, and an explainer on this past spring’s Johnson + Johnson vaccine pause.
It’s a clever initiative. Memes, the good ones anyway, spread easily and speak directly to a particular moment in time. Black social media users are often the driving force of meme culture, and Black Americans are also less likely to be vaccinated, at least in part due to limited access to vaccines and valid distrust. And while the number of Black folks getting vaccinated in Baltimore has been trending upward, only 35.5 percent of Black residents are fully vaccinated.
Within this circumstance, Adam Abadir, the communications director for the city’s health department, saw an opportunity to dispel misinformation and bolster all the work being done on the ground by, as he says, talking to people in their own language.
I spoke with Abadir and Benjamin Jancewicz, a consultant for the health department who works on the COVID-19 social media campaign, about how it came about, meme culture, and why they chose those specific names for the characters in their ads. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Julia Craven: The ad campaign reminds me of meme culture. Was that intentional?
Abadir: Absolutely. Memes are the language of the internet. And what we’re trying to do is be a part of that conversation—and it seems to be working. We’ve been pushing out information like this before the vaccine was widely available—harm reduction principles, wearing a mask, keeping six feet of distance, and that kind of stuff. We kept getting questions from our followers on social media who were doing these things about how to convince friends and family members to do them as well.
Back in February, there was this really viral moment where Mayor Brandon Scott was addressing activist Shorty Davis at a press conference. Davis’s mask was sort of falling under his face. So Scott said, “Shorty, pull your mask up.” It was this really cool moment. It taught us that there’s an opportunity to tell people how to practice harm reduction principles if we come at them from a slightly different angle. We can totally message how to stay safe during a pandemic if we’re meeting people where they are and if we’re using language that they use themselves. So that was when we started using names as a vehicle to start introducing concepts.
Later on that transformed into dealing with some misinformation head on.
Jancewicz: What we were finding is that a lot of people wanted to have these conversations with the people around them, with their friends and family, but they didn’t always feel the best equipped. They didn’t know exactly what to say. At the health department, we’re able to drive through all that with an ice breaker and really break it all apart. That’s what we saw our mayor doing. He was speaking very directly, in plain English, and that’s what people are trying to do when they have these conversations with the people around them.
There’s all this apprehension and, really, respectability politics around trying to have these conversations. And we decided to go through with a wrecking ball, and just say, “No, this is not OK.” And you don’t have to put up with it. These actions have real consequences. That’s the energy behind it.
How did you come up with the specific scenarios for the ads? Because they are very specific. Like, my Nana always had a soda and some crackers around when my stomach was hurting.
Abadir: That one was personal to me. If you’re feeling sick, drink some ginger ale, eat some crackers, and go lay down on the couch and watch The Price Is Right. It’s real. It’s real authentic conversations that we’re having. We were seeing online conversations happen about what people believe will protect them. People are very open and honest on the internet about how they feel about the vaccines, about how they want to “protect themselves” from COVID.
We’re not trying to insult your grandmother here. Grandma had a great point: Medically, ginger can totally reduce your upset stomach, but that’s not the same as protecting yourself from a pandemic that killed millions.
Jancewicz: Some of the conversations were brought to us. The ad we did saying “Salads don’t cure COVID, Connor!,” was inspired by a troll that had come into our mentions. They were saying, “I don’t need your vaccine. I’m on this keto diet. I’m eating my kale and I’m working out,” and all that stuff. We started taking the trolls’ language, feeding it back to them, and pointing out how ridiculous they sound. And using that in ways that made everybody else laugh.
We found that humor is a fantastic tool to deal with this kind of stuff, because when people are trolling us and saying these kinds of things, they’re already at a certain level where feeding them raw information isn’t going to get to them. But diffusing the situation and making them laugh actually works. And we have found—over and over again at this point—that sometimes when we are able to make our trolls laugh, we’re able to start conversations with people who would otherwise be our enemies.
Abadir: One of the weird quirks of social media is sometimes you aren’t sure if the person you’re engaging with is actually a real person or if they’re a bot. We try to distinguish people who have legitimate questions about vaccines from an anti-vax troll whose sole mission is to discourage other people from getting vaccinated.
Are these conversations happening online, in-person, or both?
Abadir: Our social media strategy is only one component of an overarching, larger communication strategy. One of the things that the health department has been doing for months now is standing up our value ambassadors. These are folks who are door-knocking in communities with low vaccination rates and have been trained, gone through focus groups paid by the health department, and they are representatives of the communities that they’re going into.
Not all of these conversations are going to be online and so we need that nuanced, face to face interaction.
Jancewicz: All of these different levels of contact feed each other. We have meetings where we talk to the people who are out at the vaccination clinics, the needle exchange programs, and all of these various outreach points in our community. They talk about what’s happening in the communities. We talk about what’s happening online. This cross conversation allows us to say, “This is a conversation that’s happening right now in Baltimore, we should address it online.” Or, “This is a conversation that’s happening online. We should address it in the field.”
The names—Connor, Debra, Derrick—align really well with the scenarios and characters. How did you come up with them?
Abadir: I know people named Derrick. I know people named Debra. These are based in real world scenarios, and real conversations that people are really having. It’s less of a science, and more art.
Jancewicz: It very much runs in the vein of “Becky” and “Chad.” There are names that people will use in clapbacks automatically and we wanted something that expanded that range a little bit, but was also very, very Baltimore. The names we picked are names that you’ll hear in and around Baltimore—to the point where on Facebook people will tag people they know with the same name in the posts. We’re having multiple levels of conversation. We’ve even had people who are named Debra say, “I’m vaccinated but I know some Debra’s who aren’t. Let me share this.”
We talked about Karen, but honestly, it’s a little too on the nose.
Abadir: People ask all the time—especially about mimosas for brunch—why didn’t we name her Karen, but that’s not what we’re doing here.
After the ads went viral, I saw critiques from several prominent physicians and public health experts, who said the ads are shaming people for believing misinformation about COVID.
Abadir: We don’t want to shame anyone for believing misinformation, but we want them to know that it’s misinformation. That is a slight difference. But, you know, at the end of the day, it’s hard to explain a joke to someone who doesn’t think it’s funny. And that’s OK, because we’re more than just jokes. We’re the health department. It’s not about tone. It’s about preventing hospitalizations. It’s about keeping people alive. It’s certainly criticism that we can take, but the goal isn’t to shame—it’s to explain that that thing you think is going to work is not and, this time, the stakes are higher.
How effective would you say the campaign has been at convincing unvaccinated people to get vaccinated?
Abadir: Unfortunately we don’t have the ability to say if someone went to a vaccination clinic directly because of a meme. But we see it in the sum of all the work that we’re doing. One of the really cool things about the Baltimore city health department is how intentional we’ve been since day one about vaccine access. We’ve taken the stance that we need to bring vaccines where people are. That means setting up mobile vaccination clinics in areas with low vaccination rates. We announced a vaccine home program where folks can make an appointment if they have trouble leaving their home for whatever reason, and our teams will come to you.
Even though we’ve seen a slowdown nationwide in terms of vaccination rates, Baltimore city’s percent increase in individuals getting vaccinated each week is consistently one of the highest in the state. We credit that to all the things we’re doing to reach people.
The Baltimore City Health Department prides itself on being the oldest health department in the nation, having been around since 1793.
But you wouldn’t think of them as old if you follow them on Twitter.
In the past week, @BMore_Healthy has been racking up praise — and calls for a pay raise — for its expert use of memes, gifs and epidemiologist-approved graphics to share the latest public health information and encourage Baltimore residents to get the COVID vaccine.
“There wasn’t a particular quote, there wasn’t a particular tweet, but I think we just got tired of the anti-vaxxers,” said Adam Abadir, director of communications in the department.
After a tweet from a recent social media campaign picked up traction among anti-vaxxers, Abadir and Benjamin Jancewicz, a social media consultant with Zerflin, logged into Twitter last week to see the health department’s mentions filled responses from anti-vaccine trolls, most of whom did not appear to live in the city, they said.
“There was just a mountain of people who had decided that they were going to spend their weekends arguing with a health department and being devil’s advocates for a parasitic viral organism,” said Jancewicz. “When we woke up and we saw that pile of stuff, we’re like, ‘Why?’”
The two emphasized that they weren’t against people who were cautious or hesitant about getting the vaccine — in fact, they said they’ve spent most of their time on social media answering people’s questions about the vaccine and working to address their concerns.
“But to be out here and telling people to not get vaccinated, and that the science isn’t what it is… you can’t come to Baltimore doing that,” said Jancewicz. “We’re not gonna be anyone’s punching bag.”
So far, the new approach to social media seems to be working, the two said. In the past few days, they’ve gained almost 1,000 followers, and with more people paying attention to their content, have been able to more widely advertise walk-up vaccination clinics in the city.
“At the end of the day, our job is to promote science and public health. The more people who see and hear about us, the wider the audience we have to provide those messages,” Abadir said.
Jancewicz noted that being responsive to trolls not only gets them a lot of engagement on social media but also encourages people to be more vocal with their public health questions.
“We have found that on all social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit, that when we have started to respond with humor and to be more authentic with our responses, that a lot of people are like “Hey, that’s hilarious — I had a serious question, what about this?’” said Jancewicz.
The department’s social media presence encompasses more than just the Twitter memes that people have appreciated.
Last week, Health Commissioner Dr. Letitia Dzirasa hosted an Ask Me Anything on r/Baltimore, the subreddit for the city, answering questions about the vaccine and her plans for the department post-pandemic, but also a few about herself, including what her favorite sneakers were.
“In general, across social media, what we’re seeing is increased engagement, because people are responding to, not some of these canned responses, but I think people are tapping into the fact that real people are running these social media accounts,” Abadir said.
Abadir and Jancewicz said the key to their new approach to social media is authenticity, and part of that has come from taking cues from Mayor Brandon Scott’s presence on social media.
Scott, who’s gone viral on Twitter more than once since being sworn into office, has paved the way for city agencies to be more creative on social media, Abadir said.
In fact, it was Scott’s “Shorty, pull your mask up,” comment at a news conference that inspired its own social media campaign from the health department.
“I remember walking around Baltimore City after the fact and hearing other people say ‘Shorty, pull your mask up,’ when they saw people dropping it,” Abadir said.
Abadir said the department had gotten questions for weeks about how to have conversations with people who weren’t wearing masks, or weren’t wearing them properly.
One of the health department’s goals during the pandemic has been to provide people with the framework to have difficult conversations, whether it was about wearing masks at the beginning of the pandemic or about getting vaccinated in recent months, Abadir said.
“What we realized is, when ‘Shorty, pull your mask up’ came out, that meant that some folks who had that question now had an answer,” Abadir said.
The health department is trying be as authentically Baltimore as it can be, Abadir and Jancewicz said, both in its more serious public health messaging but also with its funny tweets.
“Baltimore is a city that has honestly been through a lot at different points in its history. And the way that it responds to those kinds of things is by binding together, making sure that we all take care of each other, and with humor,” Jancewicz said.
“The pandemic is a really difficult trial for Baltimore to come through. And so to speak with humor, and to speak with that kind of authenticity and to speak with that kind of, ‘We’ve got each other’s back,’ is who we are as a people, is who we are as a city. And as the Baltimore City Health Department, we’re just trying to reflect that.”
A black high school student from Colorado has been caught on camera punching a white student known for regularly wearing Nazi garb.
The encounter, which happened in August at the Highlands Ranch school in the town of Mountain Vista, has only just gone viral this week after a Twitter user from Baltimore posted it to his feed.
The video clip only lasts a couple of seconds but it clearly shows one student walking up to the other before delivering a right hook to the other boy’s face sending him tumbling to the floor.
Nazi-loving kid gets punched in the face by black student in Colorado
Two Mountain Vista High students duked it out in the schoolyard after one of them who was wearing Nazi regalia struck a pose symbolic of the Ku Klux Klan.
Both pupils have since been charged with crimes.
In the video, the white student, wearing a military green jacket, was doing a T-pose, a popular meme in gaming, but one that ‘some people say has been used by the KKK to represent a burning cross,’ Lt. Lori Bronner, Douglas County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman, said to the Denver Post.
The black student then confronted him, daring him to continue the pose, Bronner said.
In the clip, the two students are seen walking side by side in a courtyard area as dozens of others sat on tables and benches during a break.
As the Black student appeared to walk away, he suddenly spun back around and punched the white student in the face, sending him tumbling to the ground
The black student was then seen to suddenly punch the white student in the face.
Seconds later, the white student got up and picked up a landscaping rock which he tried to throw at the other student, but missed.
Police gave further details about the incident saying the student who threw the punch chased down the freshman in the military jacket. The black student is then alleged to have kicked him as the student lay curled up on the ground.
The white student then called the black teen a racial slur.
Security arrived soon after and broke up the fight.
Both students were charged with harassment and disorderly conduct while the white student was charged with criminal attempted assault and the black student with assault.
There were no hate crime charges filed, however both students were suspended for a period of time.
The fight video is just the latest in a string of hate-based incidents happening inside the halls of Colorado schools.
‘Incidents are up,’ said Jeremy Shaver, associate regional director for the Colorado Anti-Defamation League. ‘As we’ve seen an increase of incidents in Colorado since 2015, the percentage in schools has also increased.’
The school has said that the white student was wearing a green jacket but that it did not have any Nazi insignias on display, although students at the school say the student was known for wearing the jacket complete with Nazi regalia and regularly posting such garb on social media.
A review of the student’s Instagram reveals numerous pictures of him wearing Nazi uniforms and striking provocative poses.
It’s been three months since two Colorado students duked it out in the schoolyard after one of them who was known for wearing Nazi regalia struck a pose symbolic of the Ku Klux Klan at school, but the incident has regained national attention after video of the fight went viral this week.
According to The Denver Post, a Twitter user from Baltimore shared the clip on his timeline Friday, where it quickly circulated the social media site.
The fight, which occurred in August, unfolded during lunch period at Mountain Vista High School in Highlands Ranch, Colo., when a white student wearing a green military-style jacket was doing the “T-pose.” The pose is popular among avid video gamers to show dominance but historically has also been used by the Ku Klux Klan to represent a burning cross, according to Douglas County Lt. Lori Bronner.
Bronner told NBC 26 an African-American student saw the white student doing the pose and walked over to confront him. The Black student then spat on the white student, after which the white student replied in kind.
As the Black student appeared to walk away, he suddenly spun back around and punched the white student in the face, sending the freshman tumbling to the ground. The white student managed to get up, however, grab a landscaping rock and hurl it at the Black student, authorities said. He missed.
In the video, the Black student is seen chasing after the teen in the military jacket and repeatedly kicking him as the student curls up into a ball on the ground. At some point during the attack, Bronner said the white student called the Black student a racial slur.
It wasn’t long before security arrived to break up the fight.
“We’ve had no other situations like this,” Bronner told NBC 26, adding that these types of incidents are rare.
It was just last month, however, that a racial slur was found scrawled on the school’s gymnasium wall. The racist graffiti was a combination of the N-word and “igloo.” Karl Coleman, one of the few African-American coaches at the predominately white high school, said he felt the vandalism was aimed at them and criticized school leadership for its handling of the situation.
“I thought it was racist,” Coleman told Fox Denver at the time. “All the Black coaches there thought it was racist.”
The August fight left the Black student facing charges of assault, harassment and disorderly conduct, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said. Meanwhile, the white student was charged with harassment, disorderly conduct and criminal attempted assault. Neither student was charged with a hate crime.
“Principal Michael Weaver told parents that there was an altercation between two students,” Paula Hans, spokesperson for the Douglas County School District, told The Denver Post. “The administration worked with the students and families directly involved as well as the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.”
School officials said the white student was wearing a military jacket at the time, however, it did not have any Nazi markings on it.
Students interviewed by the newspaper said the white student is known for wearing Nazi symbols, and a review of the student’s Instagram account revealed multiple photos of him sporting Nazi uniforms.
It’s unclear if either student was suspended or expelled following the incident.
Video of a Black high school student in Colorado punching a White student, who’s known for wearing Nazi attire, has gone viral on Twitter.
The incident, which occurred in August at Mountain Vista High School in Highlands Ranch, a suburb of Denver, began after the White student allegedly struck a T-pose in which a person demonstrates dominance, Douglas County Sheriff’s Office’s Lt. Lori Bronner told Denver’s ABC 7.
“Some people say it has been used by the KKK to represent a burning cross,” she told The Denver Post.
According to Bronner, the Black student confronted the other student for the pose and spit on him, and the White student spat back. The Black high schooler walked away but came back and punched the White student in the face.
Bronner said that the White student, who is seen wearing a green jacket in the video, picked up a rock and threw it at the Black student but missed.
“We’ve had no other situations like this,” said Bronner.
Both students were arrested; the Black student was charged with assault while and the White student was charged with harassment and disorderly conduct.
“Principal Michael Weaver told the parents that there was an altercation between two students,” Paula Hans, spokeswoman for the Douglas County School District, told the Post. “The administration worked with the students and families directly involved as well as the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.”
Earlier reports claimed that the White student had Nazi symbols on his green jacket but that the badge was not on his coat during the incident in August. Students told the Post that the teen had worn the symbols on his jacket before and reporters confirmed that he had posted images on Instagram of him wearing a Nazi uniform.
A previously unreported video of a black Mountain Vista High School student punching a white student known for wearing Nazi garb has gone viral this week even though the incident happened in August, leaving the school system once again addressing a hate incident on campus.
The fight video is just the latest in a string of hate-based incidents happening inside the halls of Colorado schools.
“Incidents are up,” said Jeremy Shaver, associate regional director for the Colorado Anti-Defamation League. “As we’ve seen an increase of incidents in Colorado since 2015, the percentage in schools has also increased.”
Video of the fight at the Highlands Ranch school rocketed around social media this week after a Twitter user from Baltimore posted it to his feed. The Denver Post is not publishing the video because it depicts two juveniles, who since have been charged with crimes.
In the video, the white student, wearing a military green jacket, was doing a T-pose, a popular meme in gaming, but one that “some people say has been used by the KKK to represent a burning cross,” Lt. Lori Bronner, Douglas County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman, said. The black student confronted him, daring him to continue this pose, Bronner said.
Next, the two students were walking side by side in a courtyard area as dozens of others milled about. Then, the black student abruptly punched the white student in the face. After a few seconds, the white student got up, picked up a landscaping rock and threw it at the other student. He missed.
Police said the student who threw the punch chased down the freshman in the military jacket, kicking him as the student curled up on the ground. At some point in the incident, Bronner said, the white student called the black teen a racial slur. Security arrived soon after and broke up the fight.
Both students were arrested, Bronner said. The white student was charged with harassment, disorderly conduct and criminal attempt assault, while the other student was charged with assault, harassment and disorderly conduct. There were no charges of a hate crime, Bronner said.
The school said the white student was wearing a green jacket but that it did not sport Nazi insignias. Students from Mountain Vista said this student was known for wearing this green jacket complete with Nazi regalia. A review of the juvenile’s Instagram account shows multiples pictures of him wearing Nazi uniforms.
Paula Hans, spokeswoman for the Douglas County School District, said the school “communicated out to parents, and the incident was handled at the time.”
“Principal Michael Weaver told the parents that there was an altercation between two students,” Hans said. “The administration worked with the students and families directly involved as well as the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.”
The school would not say whether either student was suspended or expelled.
This is not the first hate-based incident at Mountain Vista High School — or in Colorado — in recent months.
The Colorado Anti-Defamation League does not break down incidents by school, but overall antisemitic incidents in the state tripled between 2015 and 2017, Shaver said. There were 57 incident in 2017, up from 18 in 2015.
“Incidents in schools tend to be on the lower level, vandalism, swastikas drawn on school property and verbal or written harassment,” Shaver said.
In 2017, anti-Semitic incidents at K-12 schools nationwide increased to 457 from 235 in 2016, a 94 percent bump, according to a national audit by the Anti-Defamation League.
HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. – It’s been three months since a black student in Colorado reportedly punched a white student wearing a Nazi jacket in the face, but the incident has only come to light after a video of the fight went viral this week.
The fight, which happened in August, began at lunch break in front of Mountain Vista High School in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, when the white student in the Nazi jacket was doing a T-pose, which is a popular meme among gamers to demonstrate dominance or power, said Lt. Lori Bronner with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.
Historically, some members of the Ku Klux Klan have used the pose to “represent a burning cross,” Bronner told KMGH.
Bronner said the black student saw the white student doing the T-pose and went up to confront him. They exchanged words and the black student spit on the white student, at which point the white student did the same to the black student.
The black student then briefly walked away but returned to confront the white student once again before punching him in the face, causing the student to fall to the ground, according to Bronner.
She said the student wearing the green Nazi jacket then got up, grabbed a rock and threw it at the black student, missing him.
According to Bronner, the student who threw the punch then ran after his peer and kicked him after he fell to the ground. She said the student in the Nazi jacket curled into a protective, fetal position while calling the black teen a racial slur.
Shortly afterward, a third student and staff members separated the two boys.
“We’ve had no other situations like this,” said Bronner, adding this type of disputes are very rare.
Bronner said the black student was charged with assault for punching and kicking the white student, and was also charged with harassment and disorderly conduct.
The white student, Bronner said, was charged with harassment, disorderly conduct and criminal attempted assault for throwing a landscaping rock at the black student.
No one was charged with a hate crime.
KMGH reached out to Douglas County Schools for comment. Paula Hans, a public information officer for DCSD, said she could not discuss specifics on any given student’s disciplinary actions, only saying “a student is not allowed per DCSD dress code policy to wear anything that is offensive or disruptive to the learning environment.”
When asked if the white student’s jacket had any Nazi markings, Hans only said the principal at Mountain Vista High School informed her that there were “no markings on the jacket.”
According to the Denver Post,students said the white teenager was known for wearing the green jacket complete with Nazi regalia. A review by a newspaper reporter of the juvenile’s Instagram account shows multiples pictures of him wearing Nazi uniforms.
A white teen wearing a Nazi uniform jacket is punched by a black classmate in Colorado (left via screenshot)) and the student posing in the jacket (right, via Instagram).
The Denver Post reported that the video shared by Baltimore-based graphic designer Benjamin Jancewicz was shot in August at Mountain Vista High School in the Denver suburbs.
In the video, which was recorded on Snapchat and set to LL Cool J’s 1990 hit “Mama Said Knock You Out” to preserve the anonymity of the students, the black teen is seen punching his white classmate in the head.
The Denver Post reported that the white student was recorded doing a “T-pose,” a gaming meme that Lt. Lori Bronner, Douglas County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman, said has been associated with “the KKK to represent a burning cross.”
The report and Jancewicz both noted that the white student called his black classmate a racial slur, though it’s unclear if he said it before or after the student punched him. The student in the Nazi jacket then reportedly tried to throw a rock at the other teen, who later kicked him while he was on the ground.
Bronner said both students were arrested and charged in relation to the fight — the white student with “harassment, disorderly conduct and criminal attempt assault” and the black student with “assault, harassment and disorderly conduct.”
Jancewicz said he was sent social media profiles said to belong to the white student in the Nazi jacket that show his apparent fixation with Nazi symbolism and memorabilia.
In the photos and videos the Baltimore designer posted, the teen described by the Denver Post as a high school freshman is seen posing with a flag bearing an Iron Cross and a Soviet flag and wearing the same jacket he appeared to be wearing in the video.
Marylanders love their unique flag. But do they know its association with the Confederate cause?
Benjamin Jancewicz does not pay for HBO, and he is not a native Marylander. He grew up on a First Nation reservation in Canada. But this past July, when he learned the creators of Game of Thrones were in talks to bring a controversial new series Confederate, which revisits the Civil War and imagines a present in which the South had won—to the cable giant, he began noodling around the internet for the backstory of Maryland’s flag. His interest in the state’s ubiquitous flag, as a graphic designer, and Maryland’s conflicted role in the Civil War, as an activist, naturally intersected and piqued his curiosity. Like many non-natives, he also admits to some bewilderment at Marylanders’ unbridled love for their flag.
Almost immediately, Jancewicz found information linking the red-and-white quadrants of the flag—and the cross bottony contained therein—to the Confederate cause. Maryland soldiers fighting for the South often pinned the cross bottony to the lapels of their gray uniforms. And local citizens caught wearing the colors red and white during the war, or dressing their babies in such, could be charged with treason. “It’s not tough to dig this stuff up,” he says. “It’s right there on the state’s website.”
Jancewicz’s first tweet that night was intentionally provocative:
— Bucky with the Good Arm (@benjancewicz) July 31, 2017
He posted in the same Twitter thread that, after the war, Maryland tried to reconcile its split personality by creating its first official state flag—the one we admire today—in 1904. It combines the black and gold paternal Calvert crest—associated with the Union during the war and the flag of Baltimore City today—with the red and white crest of the maternal side of the Calvert family, which had been co-opted by the Confederates. (The Calverts, notably George, son Cecil, and grandson Charles—the first three Barons of Baltimore—were the founding family of the Maryland colony.)
The backlash was swift. Right-wing news outlet Breitbart caught wind of Jancewicz’s viral tweet and published a rebuke. Red Maryland, a conservative group, began a “Save Maryland’s Flag” petition. Gov. Larry Hogan declared the flag would not be changed on his watch. TV and radio stations interviewed Jancewicz, who received threats.
“More than anything, I think the response demonstrated two things: Most Marylanders don’t know the history of their flag,” Jancewicz says. “And that for all the people who say flags and monuments don’t matter, they are obviously important to a lot of people.”
Then, the controversy died as quickly as it had arisen. There was no broad call for the flag be redrawn. (Not that Jancewicz advocated one; he only encouraged people to learn its history.) We simply hold it too dear. At least for now.
The short answer to the question, “Does part of the Maryland state flag have ties to the Confederate cause?” is easy. Yes. Easy answers to other questions are more elusive. Because Maryland Confederate sympathizers and soldiers embraced the colors of the maternal side of the Calvert coat of arms (created in England in the early 17th century), does that mean the flag is forever tainted? When claims are made that the Maryland flag was created to “reconcile” Union and Confederate sides after the war, is that true?
Or, is it better understood as an attempt by white, Southern-sympathetic state legislators to assert their prominence? Certainly, the creation of the state flag was not an effort to repair the harm of two and a half centuries of slavery in Maryland to African Americans. Even at the time the legislators were claiming to bring together opposing sides of the war (nearly four decades after its conclusion) by formally adopting the flag, attempts were made by state legislators to disenfranchise black voters.
The bigger question may be whether Maryland should fly any flag paying homage to the Calvert family—either black and gold or red and white. The founding family’s record on race is shameful. In 1639, under Cecil Calvert—the second Lord Baltimore—Maryland became the first colony to specify baptism as a Christian did not make a slave a free person, as it did in England. In 1664, led by the third Lord Baltimore, plantation owner and Proprietary Governor Charles Calvert, Maryland became the first colony to mandate lifelong servitude for all black slaves, the first to make the children of slaves their master’s property for life, and the first to ban interracial marriages.
Still, it is hard to overstate the popularity of the Maryland banner. There’s a store in Hampden, Baltimore in a Box, whose entire brick rowhouse exterior has been painted to replicate the flag. There is an enormous unfurling during University of Maryland football and basketball games.
The flag can be seen on beer koozies, bikinis, beach blankets, T-shirts, key chains, cycling jerseys, and winter hats. On Twitter, Jancewicz posted a compilation of state flag tattoos.
Indeed, before Baltimore in a Box had finished the repainting of their Hampden home, an image of the massive Maryland flag storefront popped up on reddit with appropriate kudos: “T-minus 24 hours until Baltimore’s [Instagram] models come out in droves to pose in front of this.”
“People walking down ‘The Avenue’ in Hampden take pictures of it all the time without ever even in coming in,” says store owner Ross Nochumowitz. “Marylanders love the state flag. They think it’s perfect.”
To locate the origin of our admired state banner, you need to drive an hour north of London to St. Mary’s Church in Hertingfordbury, England. The design that would form the basis of our flag is inside the medieval stone chapel there, atop the beautiful funereal tomb of Anne Mynne, the first wife of George Calvert, who died, it is believed, while delivering the couple’s 11th child.
On one side of the mantle behind the marble sculpture of her body—lying in repose in a flowing gown, her head resting on a tasseled pillow—is the unmistakable black and gold crosshatching of the paternal Calvert crest. On the other side of the mantle, toward her feet, is the Mynne family crest—red and white with what is known as the cross bottony (a Christian symbol with each arm terminating in three rounded lobes).
“It is a moving tribute from George Calvert to his wife,” says Henry Miller, a historical archaeologist and director of research for St. Mary’s City. “And you can’t help but be impressed when you see the Maryland colors there together.” When Miller leads tours of Marylanders interested in the state’s English roots to Hertingfordbury, the sight of Anne Mynne’s tomb and what would eventually become Maryland flag, he says, “is always the highlight of that trip.”
Digging past the Confederate question for a moment, there is also a smaller controversy around the maternal family origins. Most Maryland texts refer to the red and white and cross bottony quadrant as the “Crossland banner” or “Crossland arms,” in reference to George Calvert’s mother’s family—the Crosslands—and not to his wife Anne Mynne’s family. But that appears to be up for debate given the visual evidence at Anne Mynne’s tomb. Ed Papenfuse, the former Maryland state archivist, believes it’s a mistake passed down through the years before the documentation of the Mynne family crest at George Calvert’s wife’s tomb.
There is still no evidence to date, however, that explains why the Southern sympathizers in Maryland—some 25,000 men joined the Confederate Army—embraced the red and white quadrant and cross bottony. It is known that Maryland’s U.S. Union troops often stitched the black and gold Calvert emblem, more closely associated with the North, into their uniforms. So it may have just been a logical response by Confederates to co-opt the other half of the founding family of Maryland’s coat of arms. Conveniently, red and white were also colors strongly associated with the Southern cause. There is also the possibility that the cross itself imbued a certain religious crusade quality to the Confederate effort in the minds of its faithful.
Whatever the case, the cross continued to turn up as a Confederate symbol. It became the focal point of an ornate iron gateway in front of the Maryland Line Confederate Soldiers’ Home in Pikesville. And crosses bottony are fixed to the tombstones of Confederate soldiers in Maryland and monuments to Maryland’s Confederate soldiers at the Gettysburg battlefield. Also known: In 1945 the General Assembly mandated that a gold cross bottony—that Maryland Confederate symbol—is the only ornament that can be mounted above the state flag. In 1983, a version of the flag was put onto state license plates. From time to time, the red and white colors and cross bottony are still flown by neo-Confederates.
“For Marylanders, it was a very potent symbol of the Confederacy,” Papenfuse says. “But it was not created to serve the Confederacy. It was created to honor the important role of women in the Calvert family.”
Indeed, the heartbreaking inscription on Anne Mynne’s tomb from her husband, George, who went into seclusion from grief after her death, describes his wife of 18 years as “a woman born for all outstanding things.” “The bottom line, to me,” Papenfuse says, “is that its meaning has other aspects beyond its sad connection to the Confederacy.”
The flag, similar to Confederate monuments in the state, “are toxic and stressful to deal with, but we have to talk about them and deal with them,” says Morgan State University associate professor Lawrence Brown. “They are directly linked to racist policies put in place in the past—in fact, they were part of the animating effort that built support for those policies—many of which still exist today.”
Brown doesn’t believe there will be widespread demand to change the flag unless people on one side start using the red and white banner at their rallies, in the same way the Confederate flag is used. “Then, I think you’ll see pushback. Same thing with the Francis Scott Key monuments [Key, a slave owner and anti-abolitionist, included a lesser-known, pro-slavery stanza in his ‘Star-Spangled Banner’]. If they become a rallying point for white supremacists or the KKK, then there will be conflict and pushback.
“You can’t predict which way the river of history will turn, or where the rapids will appear,” Brown continues. “It is important to dismantle the symbols of racism, but that is not the end goal. It is more important to dismantle the polices they represent.”
