Parkland Teen Kyle Kashuv, Former Turning Point USA Member, Apologizes For Racist Slurs

Kashuv, a pro-gun advocate, used slurs on multiple occasions, two Parkland teens told HuffPost.

Kyle Kashuv, a pro-gun shooting survivor and former member of an embattled college Republican group, apologized Wednesday night on Twitter for racist remarks and slurs he’d made in text and Skype messages and in a shared Google document for a class study guide.

Kashuv, who is now 18 and a high school senior, is only the latest person affiliated with Turning Point USA to be caught making racist remarks. (Before he stepped down, Kashuv was the group’s director of high school outreach.) Riley Grisar, who led the group’s University of Nevada Las Vegas chapter, was removed from TPUSA after a video surfaced of him declaring “white power” and saying racist slurs. And in April 2018, HuffPost discovered a swath of racist comments made by several TPUSA members.

Kashuv’s racist messages were shared with HuffPost by a former student and a current student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The messages date to late 2017 or early 2018, just a couple of months before a shooting at the school left 17 dead. The teens who spoke to HuffPost asked to remain anonymous, saying they didn’t want to be associated with Kashuv.

“We were 16-year-olds making idiotic comments, using callous and inflammatory language in an effort to be as extreme and shocking as possible,” Kashuv said in a statement posted on Twitter Wednesday night, hours after HuffPost reached out to him for comment.

In a shared Google doc for a midterm study guide that classmates used for an Advanced Placement U.S. history exam, and that HuffPost was given access to, Kashuv used the N-word multiple times. (His words are highlighted in gray in the image below.)

Kyle Kashuv repeatedly used the N-word in a class document seen by multiple students. The document was shared with HuffPost.
Kyle Kashuv repeatedly used the N-word in a class document seen by multiple students. The document was shared with HuffPost.
Google

Kashuv wrote that he is “really good at typing nigger ok like practice uhhhhhh makes perfect.” At least one other student also appears to make racist comments in the document.

In that same document, Kashuv said he would “fucking make a CSOG map of Douglas and practice.” He was likely referring to the shooting game “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.”

A Google doc showing Kashuv's racist remarks.
A Google doc showing Kashuv's racist remarks.
Google

Everyone knew him as the vulgar kid that says stuff like that, talked that way out loud,” the former student who shared the document with HuffPost said of Kashuv. “He would talk that way to a lot of people. I don’t think he was trying to hide it or anything, I don’t think he was scared, I think he fell into that Discord, gamer guy that says those vulgar things.”

The document appears to show that in May 2018, Kashuv attempted to delete what he wrote, but his previous writings were easily recoverable.

A current student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas who calls herself a “former friend” of Kashuv also shared text and Skype correspondence the two had.

“[She] goes for niggerjocks,” Kashuv said in a text message about another female student.

Kashuv complains about a "7/10" girl going for "niggerjocks."
Kashuv complains about a "7/10" girl going for "niggerjocks."
Text

The teen told HuffPost she was coming forward because she sees Kashuv’s behavior as problematic.

“I honestly think, yeah, he’s racist against black people,” the teen told HuffPost.

Another Parkland student who spoke to HuffPost and had access to Kashuv’s racist remarks said she threatened to expose him. She said that the day after her threat, Kashuv stepped down from TPUSA.

In a statement posted to Twitter last week, Kashuv said he was leaving the group to focus on “school safety legislation." Kashuv told HuffPost in a text that the slurs surfaced after he resigned.

Charlie Kirk, TPUSA’s founder, did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.

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