Out High School Student Refused to Participate in Viral Nazi Salute Photo

A prom photo, taken this past spring before Baraboo High School’s dance in Baraboo, Wisc., went viral because it showed a group of high school teens giving a Nazi salute. However, one student refused to participate.

The photo, posted on Twitter from the account Welcome to Baraboo, shows a large group of male students giving a Nazi salute. One student can also be seen making an “OK” sign which some believe was meant to be a white power symbol. The photo was captioned “We even got the black kid to throw it up.” The tweet has since been deleted.

A student can be seen in the far right corner of the group who is neither smiling or giving the salute. Out high school student Jordan Blue explained to journalist Jules Suzdaltsev that he wasn’t able to leave the photo because it was taken in five seconds. However, he chose not to participate because “It’s something I firmly didn’t believe in.”

“I attend BHS. These classmates have bullied me since entering middle school. I have struggled with it my entire life, and nothing has changed. These are the boys of the class of 2019. Nothing has been done, and my question is, will anything ever be done? I truly and firmly believe we need to make a change to this horrible act. It needs to stop. Bullying, immaturity, and just taking things as a ‘joke,’” Blue says.

View image on Twitter
In an interview with “CBS This Morning,” Blue says the photographer didn’t tell them to raise their hands in a Nazis symbol but that his classmates chose to do that on their own.

“I’m pretty sure my classmates just interpreted as ‘raise your hand let’s do this as a joke,’” Blue says.”It did not represent my morals and I could not do something that I didn’t believe in. I think some [students] are [regretful]. Some of these people have bright futures ahead of them, so why’d they do it?”

Story courtesy of the Washington Blade.