Top Basketball Recruit Jalen Johnson Subject To Blackface Taunt

PORT WASHINGTON, WI -- Jalen Johnson, a junior at Nicolet High School in Glendale is a five-star basketball recruit. ESPN says he's the third-ranked basketball recruit in the class of 2020 and already has scholarship offers from the likes of Arizona, Duke, Kentucky and North Carolina.

On Feb. 13, the Nicolet High School varsity basketball team went on the road for a game against Port Washington. At one point in the game, the 17-year-old Johnson stepped to the free throw line. According to multiple reports, students from Port Washington High School held up poster-sized photos of Johnson. Officials said the photo was taken from Johnson's own Instagram account, and depicted him wearing a charcoal skin care facial mask. The skin care mask resembled blackface.

According to a CBS58 report, a Port Washington High School parent helped his son print out the photos himself. His son received a five-day suspension for the incident.

A day later, on Valentine's Day, Johnson tweeted that the gesture was "UNACCEPTABLE."

The photos, and the entire incident was quickly share online as an apparent act of racism. In a tweet, Joe Chapman wrote: "If you don’t think this is a form of racism you need to look in the mirror at yourself. Thousand pics to choose from and they put this one up! Even if the kids don’t know the history behind a painted face the parents and coaches should."

Rod Johnson, one of Jalen’s siblings, posted a statement that was retweeted family members. His statement, in part, read: “I was going to stay quiet but I just can’t. The fact of what happened to my little brother is not funny or okay by any means. I really don’t want to believe it was an act of racism, I wanna believe it was an act of distraction and trying to throw him off his game.”

Nicolet Superintendent Robert Kobylski stood up for his student, while questioning why Port Washington Students would do such a thing.

"I cannot speak to the motivation or intent the Port Washington students had in displaying this photo, whether a harmless skin-care prank or a more deeply troubling, racially motivated scenario," Kobylski said in a statement, per a JSOnline report. "I can attest, however, to the fact that Jalen is more than a tremendous athlete: He is a fine, upstanding young man and deserves to be treated with respect and courtesy by all students and people, no matter what bench they are rooting for."

Port Washington High School Principal Eric Burke was reportedly horrified.

“It’s disappointing,” he said in a JSOnline report. “We’re going to make this right. Apologies have to be made. As a principal, I apologize for our students' actions, but our students are going to be involved in a sincere apology for what happened and the people who made this happen, there are going to be consequences.”

Officials at the Port Washington-Saukville School District called the signs "just plain wrong."

"The signs can be viewed by some as racist, and are just plain wrong. As soon as school officials saw them, the signs were taken down,” the Port Washington–Saukville School District said in a statement. "This conduct can be viewed as harmful and hateful. We condemn such behavior because this is not representative of the values of our District.”

Photo Credit: Image via Shutterstock