What part got “massively blown out of proportion?” A boy got suspended after verbally getting into it with Owens in a school hallway. Afterward, several boys (including the Mayor’s son) rode by calling her racist names and making death threats. Maybe the school felt it was overblown because they got sued for failing to respond, feeling like she could continue to go to school with the boys that threatened her. She stayed out of school for six weeks until under pressure the police made an arrest and the school finally made additional suspensions. Despite everything I think of her now, death threats combined with whatever she was called (we can both guess) was not a little deal. Excusing racism is what allows it to exist.

The story of the 14-year-old Mayor’s son is interesting. The claim he didn’t even know two of the boys he was riding in the car with sounds incredible to me. It seems like part of a story designed to keep him from getting a criminal record and his father got him off.