• ELIXHER
• On July 8, 2014

Maya Peterson, openly gay former student body president at The Lawrenceville School, recently joined The Melissa Harris-Perry Show to discuss why she decided to post a satirical photo to Instagram which led the school administration to use the threat of disciplinary action to urge Peterson’s resignation. Wife duo, Politini co-hosts and ELIXHER Magazine columnists Aisha and Danielle Moodie-Mills also chimed in on the “dynamics of diversity.”

(READ: What Lawrenceville School’s Maya Peterson Teaches Us About “Reverse Racism”)

“People making culturally insensitive jokes happen at Lawrenceville and there’s no repercussion,” Peterson says on MHP. “You have people dressing up as Indian chiefs and geishas, and taking pictures, and it’s funny but then when it’s happening the other way around to the majority of the population, all of a sudden it’s a problem.”

In the segment, MSNBC host Harris-Perry cited an open letter to Peterson, penned by Alexis Wilkinson, the first Black woman president of The Harvard Lampoon. Wilkinson writes, “To me, it is that power dynamic that made your Instagram post comical and harmless. And it is that power dynamic that allowed you to be stripped of your position for it. Because, as much as you are “in charge,” it is the people you mocked who have the capacity to remove that power, not the other way around.”

Check out the interview with Peterson below.