A Black family in Florida received a racist note last week over decorations outside their home celebrating their twin daughters’ graduation from high school.
Toya T’mour Sproul, the twin girls’ mother, shared the anonymous note on Facebook after finding the letter in the mailbox outside of their home in Yulee, Fla. on Thursday.
It read “Don’t you think enough is enough? It’s time to take those hideous posters of that ugly fat black girl down off your house.”
“What a disgrace to the neighborhood. In fact, your entire brood is a disgrace to the neighborhood. Consider moving to a ‘hood’ of your kind. Your neighbors are watching you!” it continued.
The twin girls, Xanah and Xarah Sproul, graduated from Yulee High School with honors, were section leaders in the school band and members of the National Honors Society.
They have been awarded scholarships and are planning to enter Saint Leo University’s premed program in the fall.
The high school gave families of 2020 graduates posters with photos of their children earlier this year. The posters were displayed outside of the Sproul family’s home.
The girls’ father, David Sproul, said he was shocked by the letter. The family has lived in their neighborhood for five years.
“I would say that was coldblooded because it was directed about kids. Even if it wasn’t about race, to do something like that to a child, say something like that to children is terrible,” he told NBC News.
However, the father said that, after reading the letter, the teenagers “didn’t let it bother them.”
“They realized that the person who wrote it didn’t even know them, so they kind of disregarded it instantly,” Davis Sproul told NBC News.
“Although they are very accomplished young ladies and they do work very hard … at the same time, this didn’t happen to two accomplished young women. This happened to two young Black women,” Sproul continued. “The person who did this didn’t know that they had any accomplishments, didn’t know their work ethic in any way. This happened to two humans, and it shouldn’t have happened at all.”
A drive-by parade to celebrate Xanah and Xarah Sproul on Thursday has received hundreds of responses on Facebook.
The twins’ cousin shared a now-viral photo of the letter on Twitter last week, which has garnered over 42,000 likes and over 15,000 retweets.
my twin cousins graduated from high school this year. both of my girls are going to college on full ride scholarships in the honors program. naturally, their parents are super proud.
a neighbor anonymously left this letter in their mailbox & i am livid. pic.twitter.com/aPmHm053lm
— Britt Knows Beauty ♡ (@mslauryntrill) July 24, 2020
The family filed a police report with the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office.
Undersheriff Roy Henderson said in a statement that “We at the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office do not tolerate racism and hate crimes in our county. This is out of character for Nassau County and we will continue to investigate this incident. We are proud of the Sproul twins’ accomplishments and hope to get to the bottom of this soon.”
The sheriff’s office said that it is planning to retrieve the letter from the family today to process it for possible fingerprint traces.