College Station teens receive support from community following racist texts from classmates
The Berryman family wants to set the record straight about what happened and how the community has rallied around them, sharing their story only with Rusty Surette.
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) - A College Station family is sharing their story of a hateful hoax that targeted their son and his friends, including racist remarks from fellow classmates.
Aiden Berryman, Braelon Ray, and Chuk Obiazi, who recently launched ABC Yard and Cleaning as a side hustle, received a call from someone last Friday claiming to be a new customer requesting power washing and car detailing services. When they arrived Saturday, they learned that it was a hoax and that there was no customer.
Instead, when they tried to get clarification on what happened, they received racial and derogatory text messages that left them shocked and confused.
“At first I was kind of shocked and wasn’t really sure what to feel,” said Aiden.
The high school juniors later discovered that some of their fellow classmates at A&M Consolidated, who are both white and black, played a role in what happened.
Brittany Berryman, Aiden’s mom, shared the messages on Facebook and says the response from the community has been remarkable and proves a point.
“Things like that aren’t okay and not tolerated here and the majority know what to do and what’s right,” said Brittany.
The young entrepreneurs’ business calendar is now full, thanks to the many people who want to show them their support.
“I do think in the end it’s turned out really well for us,” said Aiden.
Brittany says that she wanted to share this story publicly to let others know that these kinds of hurtful things do happen. She hopes that her son and his business partners take away from it the lesson that they shouldn’t let it stop them because, if they stop, the others win.
Even though the incident happened off-campus, the school district immediately launched an investigation. Due to student privacy policies, the school district says they cannot share what disciplinary action, if any, was taken.
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