The vast majority of young people have used social media to support the protests following the killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. But some have posted photos of themselves kneeling on a friend’s neck and mocking the manner in which Floyd was killed -- the so-called #GeorgeFloydChallenge on TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram. (The images have since been removed from most sites.)

When I first heard about this phenomenon, I was stunned by how abnormal it seemed, and the deep level of racism it revealed. Teenagers often have lapses in judgment or make poor choices, but reenacting a man’s torture and killing for kicks? People who can laugh at someone being brutalized usually see the victim as less than human.

One student who posted such a video on Snapchat -- teens laughing while simulating choking each other, with one heard to say “I can’t breathe” -- was an incoming freshman at the University of Missouri. A copy of that video reached Mizzou officials, who released a statement.

“Given the similarity to the recent death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the video is both shocking and disturbing,” wrote Mun Y. Choi, president of the UM System and interim chancellor at the University of Missouri. The university launched an investigation and told the student she would be suspended until it was complete. The student decided to withdraw, as did another girl in the video, an incoming Missouri State University student.

Other universities have revoked admission for students posting similar content. It’s important to send an unequivocal message that this behavior is unacceptable, especially when schools and universities have a history of minimizing racist acts.

But what could prompt adolescents to showcase these kinds of depraved posts in the first place?

Johnnetta Cole, a therapist based in suburban St. Louis, said young people who have witnessed adults in positions of leadership -- from teachers to parents to political leaders -- making racist comments or jokes and escaping any consequences may internalize the message that this behavior is acceptable. Others may be reacting to the change they see happening in society.

“I believe that although young people are leading this movement (for justice), we still have some teenagers and young people who are fearful of change,” she said.

This can lead to acting out in drastic ways.

Rachel Morris, a licensed professional counselor and anger resolution therapist in Houston, primarily works with teens and adolescents. She said that students of color have often had conversations with their parents about how to manage situations in which they might be treated badly because of the color of their skin, or have experienced discrimination. Students who have never had these conversations or experiences may lack empathy for those who have.

“If they have not experienced that trauma, they may not understand the seriousness of it,” Morris said. She said racist posts can also be attention-seeking behavior: They will get immediate responses, and even negative attention is attention.

Both Morris and Cole said social and environmental factors are exacerbated by teens’ underdeveloped brains. Kristen Craren, a therapist based in Clayton, Missouri, agreed that brain immaturity likely plays a role. But if there are other red flags in the adolescent’s behavior -- social struggles, violence towards others or pets -- it’s worth talking to a therapist, she said.

“If they don’t understand that what they did was wrong, I would definitely suggest therapy,” Morris added. Craren suggests vetting the therapist before making an appointment to make sure they share the parent’s values and political beliefs.

Attitudes towards others are influenced by what a young person sees and hears at home, and in the community of adults and peers around them.

Cole recalls a racist incident two years ago, when her daughter was a senior in high school. A student asked a classmate to prom by holding a sign that said: “If I was black, I’d be picking cotton, but I’m white, so I’m picking you for prom.”

The same racist sign had made the rounds in schools across the country. Some schools prohibited the student in question from attending prom; Cole’s daughter’s district did not disclose how that student was disciplined.

Regardless of the way school leaders chose to respond, their actions sent a message to more than the student involved.

They spoke loudly to the entire school.

Dear Class of 2020,

By now you’ve heard celebrities, politicians and activists tell you how your generation -- full of promise and potential -- will help fix the disastrous mess we’re in.

“This is your generation’s world to shape,” former President Barack Obama said during a televised commencement address. He cited the country’s deep-rooted problems, such as economic inequality, systemic racism and health care disparities.

You’ve been charged with changing the world, rebuilding the country, rising to the occasion, healing divides and demanding better.

No pressure or anything.

I also believe in your ability to be the generation that will transform our world for the better. Every young person I’ve met gives me that sense of hope. But just as much as congratulating and wanting to inspire you, adults in this country owe you an apology. Several, in fact. We have failed you in significant ways. So, let me apologize on behalf of all of us:

I’m sorry we subjected you to horrific school shootings and traumatic shooter drills from the time you were too young to even understand this depravity. We allowed this to continue despite knowing that improving gun laws and policies would save your lives. It’s an unforgivable disgrace that your government continues to value gun manufacturers above your lives and security. I hate that you’ve grown up in such a violent culture and country, especially when we know there are ways to make it less so.

I’m sorry we did not do a better job protecting your privacy, personal data and security from tech companies who have used it to become exceedingly rich. European countries have taken this issue far more seriously than we have. The technology that has permeated your life since birth has also exploited and exposed you to things we should have protected you from.

I’m sorry that we haven’t taken seriously the threat of climate change and the ways it will affect your future. I don’t blame you for thinking that adults who deny and ignore the world’s scientists are blithering idiots.

I’m sorry you’ve come of age seeing videos of black people being brutalized and killed by the police. I’m ashamed that we haven’t fought harder for reforms to make this country safer and more fair for people of color. The fact that black and brown people still face worse treatment by schools, employers and the law is a stain on the generations that precede you.

I’m sorry that most of you will have to take on greater debt to attend college than any of us did. I’ll never understand why adults who themselves benefited from more affordable higher education would think it’s OK for you to mortgage your futures just to get a degree.

You are old enough to know how unfair this world can be. It was our job to try to make it a little more fair, but we’ve done the opposite. We’ve made it better for the wealthy and privileged, and harder for everyone else. Because of this, you’ve seen us stressed, working longer hours and distracted too often.

You’re entering young adulthood during a pandemic that our government’s inaction made far worse than it should have been, along with widespread civil unrest, more division than most of us can remember and a tanked economy. We are giving you a weakened democracy and civil society.

You deserve so much better than this.

I hope this moment forces adults to confront how selfishly we’ve behaved. Once upon a time, when we were your age, we also dreamed of making the world a better place. I’m sorry we’ve fallen short so far.

Our one redemption may be that we’ve raised a generation who will do better.

When Beth Allen, 34, first heard the phrase “Black Lives Matter” during the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, she immediately bristled and thought, “All lives matter.”

Then, she stopped to listen.

She’s spent the six years since then trying to learn about the extent of racial injustice in America, a topic that she hadn’t paid much attention to before. This week, she responded to a friend from college who criticized parents taking their children to the recent protests.

“There’s a huge difference between a protest and a riot,” she commented on his Facebook post. She said she wouldn’t hesitate to take her 4-year-old daughter to one of the protests. She has avoided them because she is immunocompromised and worries about the exposure to coronavirus, but said she wishes she could be in the streets with her. “It’s important that we show our children how to use their voices and stand up for what is right,” she said.

When her friend responded that he was judging her, she’d had enough: “Well, if that’s what you’re going to judge me over, judge away. I’ll be busy not raising a racist a

hole.”

He blocked her.

Allen, who lives in unincorporated St. Louis County, is part of a wave of suburban white families engaging their children in the movement for racial justice sparked by the recent police killing of George Floyd. Some had never uttered the words “Black Lives Matter” before, let alone carried a sign saying as much in a march against police brutality. Thousands have joined in protests across the region, including politically conservative areas in St. Charles and west St. Louis County.

There is a growing understanding that acknowledging that the problem is bigger than “a few bad apples” is not the same as criticizing all cops.

Some, like Jennifer Harris Dault’s family, were drawn into the movement after a Ferguson police officer fatally shot unarmed teenager Michael Brown. They have leaned into an infrastructure of anti-racism connections that were established then, and that continue to grow.

Harris Dault, 37, is interim pastor at St. Louis Mennonite Fellowship. When she and her husband began attending protests and vigils six years ago, she was pregnant with her first child. This past week, they took their 5-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter to a small protest in Ferguson. They had told their son, Simeon, that a man named George Floyd had been hurt by the police, and they needed to speak out and say that it was wrong.

Simeon came up with the words for their sign: “Hurting people is not right.” He and his sister were both wearing masks and riding in their double stroller when he spotted a protestor’s sign that said, “I can’t breathe.” Alarmed, he read it and called out to his mother, “That woman can’t breathe!”

She bent down to the stroller and said, “Buddy, people are holding those signs because that’s what George Floyd said. Those are his words that people are using to remember him and say that what happened to him is not OK.”

Simeon and his little sister, Madeleine, chanted their slogan as their parents pushed their stroller down the street.

Harris Dault has been encouraged to see a number of white people engaging for the first time. She belongs to a couple of Facebook groups that support BLM. One of them approved 200 new members in a single day. It seems the words went from controversial to mainstream almost overnight, embraced by celebrities and brands that had been silent before. White people started posting questions in these groups about how to protest for the first time.

She wants her children to grow up internalizing the importance of being present to witness the pain of others, to stand in it with them, to take that story with them and share it with others.

“It’s essential to being human,” she said.

Those joining the protests can more easily distinguish between the millions of peaceful protesters across the country and the rioters damaging property and resorting to violence at night. It’s a distinction they’ve also pointed out to their children.

Bryna Williams, 43, of Oakland, Missouri, took her three children, ages 3, 5 and 10, to a recent march. It was the first time her older children participated in a protest, although they have had many discussions about racism at home. She wanted to start teaching them about how to recognize and try to dismantle systemic racism while they are still young.

“It’s easier to learn to ride a bike when they are 5 as opposed to when they are 20,” she said. ”Kids are more reflective about things than we give them credit to be. They can handle it.”

She is aware of her role as a mother raising two white boys, who she hopes will recognize their role in the system and what they can do to make it more fair.

Several parents said the difference in this case may have been the unambiguous horror of the video that showed Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling into Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes, during which Floyd pleaded for breath and called out for his mother before dying. Meanwhile, three other officers watched.

After nine days of protest, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison increased charges against Chauvin to second- degree murder and charged the other three officers, as well.