“Some were trying to keep the story hushed up…”

- The story was not being kept “hushed-up”. It was simply not being announced through a megaphone to the campus. Part of that was because the actual internal issue was no one’s business but the parties involved; the other reason was because we know that media outlets have a tendency to sensationalize the news for the sake of reader entertainment (case in point: this editorial). Which sounds better: “Not speaking publicly about the story” or “Keeping the story hushed up”?

“Marching band has taken the right steps by bringing a motivational speaker to address the band students but needs to go farther in discussing the specific offenses of Skit Night.”

- Actually, Scott Lang’s appearance at LAHS was purely coincidental in terms of timing with the band camp incident. Mr. Ferrucci had planned on having a mid-season check-up with the leadership staff and other band members that wished to attend. He was not brought in for the specific purpose of remedying the racial joke issue. In fact, he only talked about it indirectly, and only for about 5 minutes of his two-hour talk. Also, if you were an actual member of the band and weren’t getting your information second-hand at best, you would be aware of all of the talks that have occurred with the band to make them aware of the specific offense committed. The members are aware of what they did, and have gone to great lengths to try to apologize and make it up to me.

“Moving on does not mean pretending that the issue never happened, although such pretense might be easier than tackling the underlying issues.”

- Again with the sensationalist language? This quote directly follows the line about marching band bringing in a speaker, so it infers that the band is guilty of pretending nothing happened and avoiding the issue. I don’t know of a single band or staff member trying to “pretend that the issue never happened”. When I spoke with a few members of the leadership staff in private, we all agreed that the issue would be completely impossible to forget! There’s no way any of us can pretend it never happened. We chose to dive in and tackle the issue so that we could work through it, not tuck it away in the corners of our mind. The way you wrote this makes us seem cowardly; I will assure you, nothing could be more false.

As a band organization, we have been taking the steps necessary to mend the situation and move forward.

As the individual personally offended by the skit, I have been trying my hardest to get back to a level of comfort around the students so that I can do my job well again. Printing a tabloid-style editorial does nothing to help the situation at all.

I knew the editorial would be like this, and that’s precisely why I didn’t want there to be one.

-Alex Blue