School districts, El Paso police respond<\/p>\n
Texas public schools are limited in how they can discipline students for behavior off campus and outside school hours.<\/p>\n
Tracy Garcia-Ramirez, spokesperson for Ysleta Independent School District, said in an email the district has not identified any YISD students as being part of the group of hooded individuals.<\/p>\n
\u201cNonetheless, we are monitoring this matter closely and will swiftly address any resulting and substantial disruption to our educational environment to include retaliation, discrimination, harassment or bullying, which is not protected speech under the First Amendment,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Kevin Venegas, a spokesperson for Clint Independent School District, said the district is not aware of any currently enrolled students dressing up in KKK-style robes or hoods.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Socorro Independent School District did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
The El Paso Police Department is investigating the incident to determine whether any laws were violated, including disorderly conduct.<\/p>\n
\u201cFree expression has limits when it crosses into conduct that threatens public order or the safety of others,\u201d reads a statement from El Paso Police Chief Peter Pacillas on social media.<\/p>\n
Addressing racism at school can feel like \u2018political landmine\u2019<\/p>\n
Carolina Cardoza graduated high school three years ago in Northeast El Paso, where she saw \u201cMexican culture and Black culture coexist.\u201d But she was not surprised when she saw the video clip of possible high school students dressed as Klansmen.<\/p>\n
Her generation is known for being \u201cwoke,\u201d but young people are so far removed from the history of the Ku Klux Klan and not being taught about it, she said.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Untitled-1200-x-675-px.png\")
Newspaper clippings of articles about the Ku Klux Klan in El Paso and their activities. (Image created by Brandy Ruiz)<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you pay attention to social and cultural cues, it makes sense that something like this would happen in a space like El Paso,\u201d Cardoza said.<\/p>\n
Cardoza said she often heard non-Black students saying racial slurs and appropriating Black hairstyles. As someone who\u2019s not Black, Cardoza said she did not think it was her place to confront them, especially if Black students gave their Mexican friends \u201ca pass\u201d on using the N-word. Mexicans have even told her they cannot be racist because they\u2019re a minority as well, she added.<\/p>\n
Now a senior at the University of Texas at El Paso, Cardoza is majoring in political science and multimedia journalism, and developing a project proposal on anti-Black discourse in Latino spaces. She said Mexicans in El Paso live in a bubble where they\u2019re the majority-minority, so they can become blind to racism and even colorism within their own community until they step outside of El Paso and experience racism themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth dynamics can coexist,\u201d Cardoza said. \u201cYou can have someone experience racial discrimination, and still be able to participate in racism toward someone else or your own group.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cardoza noted that in the video clips posted on Instagram, people lingered around and followed the costumed group. She said if she saw people wearing Klan hoods, a symbol of violence, she would not feel safe and her first instinct would be to leave.<\/p>\n
The KKK wore white robes and conical, hooded masks to hide their identity when they terrorized people, escaping consequences from law enforcement and the public.\u00a0<\/p>\n
June Straight, a digital media and journalism teacher at Jefferson High School, said many of her students learn for the first time what it\u2019s like to be treated differently because of their accent or how they look when they go on field trips to other cities, such as University Interscholastic League competitions in Lubbock.<\/p>\n
Without that experience, they tend to associate white supremacy as an issue between Black and white people and with lynching in the South, not with microaggressions and less fatal situations, Straight said. Rage baiting for a reaction is trendy among teenagers and there have been racial incidents throughout her teaching career, such as a student making the Nazi salute at the El Paso Holocaust Museum or another student yelling the N-word at Black athletes at a track meet.<\/p>\n
Straight said she has given students at every school she\u2019s taught at a reminder that intent doesn\u2019t negate impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have Black friends and you\u2019re using the N-word around them, somewhere in their heart, they might not feel safe around you,\u201d Straight said.<\/p>\n
But it can be tricky to address empathy in schools at a time when state laws restrict how educators can teach race, she said. There are parents who argue that\u2019s not what they send their children to school for, she said.<\/p>\n
At Parkland High School, some of Straight\u2019s students would open up to her because she was one of the few Black teachers, she said. Black students told her they felt uncomfortable hearing students saying the N-word and joking around about Black stereotypes. They felt like they couldn\u2019t confront people, even their friends, because teachers seemed to allow it, she said.<\/p>\n
But when Straight spoke to teachers, they said they too felt uncomfortable and in the current political climate, didn\u2019t want to say something that might cause angry parents to threaten their jobs.<\/p>\n
So in 2024, Straight gave a faculty-wide training on how to address slurs on campus \u201cwithout feeling like they\u2019re stepping on a political landmine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Straight said high school prepares students for the professional world. With this in mind, she tells students that using racial slurs is not appropriate in a professional space and could cost them their job or their employer to lose business, regardless of their moral ideas. It\u2019s a neutral form of chastisement that takes away how the slurs make her feel or make other people feel, she said.<\/p>\n
At the training, Straight shared data and anonymous comments from student surveys. Many teachers expressed shock because they thought of their classrooms as safe spaces, and felt hurt that their students didn\u2019t bring issues up with them, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t expect students to step up when we\u2019re the adults,\u201d Straight said. \u201cThey\u2019re uncomfortable constantly about their identity and if they don\u2019t feel comfortable talking to us, it\u2019s on us to break down those barriers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Advocates demand accountability for hostile behavior<\/p>\n
Retired police officer and author Ron Stallworth said dressing up as the Ku Klux Klan is an act of terrorism, regardless if people understand the history behind the robes and masks.<\/p>\n
Stallworth grew up in El Paso and was a Colorado Springs police detective who infiltrated the KKK by phone, posing as a white supremacist. His book, \u201cBlack Klansman: Race, Hate and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime,\u201d was the inspiration for Spike Lee\u2019s 2018 Academy Award winning film, \u201cBlacKkKlansman.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor them to think this is funny shows their lack of understanding and lack of knowledge of what this is all about,\u201d Stallworth said.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/CB_Stallworth-9841.jpg\")
\u2018Black Klansman\u2019 author Ron Stallworth stands outside his alma mater Austin High School on Aug. 11, 2023. The Ku Klux Klan, which dominated the El Paso school board in the 1920s, influenced the naming of schools after Texas independence figures, including Austin High School, which is named after slave owner Stephen F. Austin.<\/p>\n
People can connect the recent incident to the 2019 Walmart mass shooting, when a white supremacist killed 23 people in El Paso, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would ask them how many of them remember the shooting, the mass shooting at Walmart \u2026 how they felt about it, how they feel about it now,\u201d Stallworth said. \u201cRemember the outrage that everybody expressed over that kid coming from Dallas and then killing predominantly Mexicans? This has the same potential, the same impact.\u201d<\/p>\n
The KKK espouses the \u201cGreat Replacement\u201d conspiracy theory that non-white immigrants are intentionally replacing white populations. The Walmart shooter cited the same conspiracy theory in his online manifesto posted just minutes before he attacked.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Racism scarred El Paso long before Aug. 3, 2019 mass shooting<\/a><\/p>\n In El Paso, the hate group tried to remove Catholics from positions of power. Italso targeted Jewish people who did not fit the KKK\u2019s ideology of white nationalism, the El Paso Holocaust Museum said in a statement.<\/p>\n Monica Tucker, founder of online publication Black El Paso Voice, said in a Facebook statement<\/a> that people should be concerned about how the Halloween incident \u201ccan escalate in ways nobody can control, and it puts everyone at risk, including the young people who did it.\u201d<\/p>\n Tucker said she and her own children have experienced racism in El Paso. She has received threats and hateful messages since starting Black El Paso Voice, especially around Juneteenth, the holiday that commemorates the end to slavery. That hostility spilled across social media during Juneteenth this year and the silence from local leaders \u201cmade moments like this weekend easier,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI have read the comments,\u201d Tucker posted about the weekend\u2019s incident. \u201c\u2018Kids will be kids.\u2019 \u2018It was a joke.\u2019 \u2018Black people are too sensitive.\u2019 My answer is simple: there is nothing funny about dressing up as the people who lynched Black Americans, and there is nothing sensitive about refusing to accept it. When adults excuse this behavior, they teach young people that it is acceptable, and that is exactly how it keeps happening.\u201d<\/p>\n Living Black on the Border<\/p>\n Black El Paso Voice is hosting a virtual discussion about racism in El Paso at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 8 and planning an in-person event in December. Sign up to participate or listen at: blackelpasovoice.com\/racism<\/a>.<\/p>\n Where it Began: Civil Rights and the El Paso Branch of the NAACP<\/p>\n The El Paso Museum of History in Downtown is hosting a pop-up exhibition in partnership with the El Paso branch of the National Advancement of Colored People, where visitors can learn about the organization\u2019s fight against racism in El Paso. For more information about how to visit the museum, go to: www.epmuseumofhistory.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n El Paso Matters editor Cindy Ramirez, audience engagement reporter Brandy Ruiz and CEO Robert Moore contributed to this article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Advocates are calling for El Paso residents to confront anti-Blackness in their community and learn the history of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-479349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}