Colorado cheerleaders describe racist taunts at a football game, on The Root
The short news report on a high school game in late September drew hundreds of comments in half a day, and many ask why the response fell to the cheerleaders alone.
The Root
Story of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 64,760 views a day, 16 times a normal first day on this channel (4,097).
Colorado Cheerleaders Racially Harassed at a Football Game | The Root
The Root's newest Short tells the story of a group of Colorado high school cheerleaders who say they faced racist harassment while cheering at a football game at a private Lutheran school on September 24.
The cheerleaders describe students telling them to "go back to where you came from," one of them being called Harriet Tubman, and students blocking their way through the student section. They say they want school officials to take what happened seriously. The school says it is investigating, and no disciplinary findings have been announced.
The report reached close to 44,000 views in its first 12 hours, far beyond what a Short here usually does in a full day. The comment section moved faster still. More than 600 comments came in, where this channel's Shorts usually collect a couple of dozen on their whole first day. The most liked question asks why the stand was left to the cheerleaders and not taken up by the whole team. Many other viewers point to the school's religious identity.
It was one of two news Shorts from the same day that ran well ahead of usual. The other, from a Memphis City Council meeting where a councilwoman was removed from the chambers during a debate over a pause on new data centers, drew a large crowd of its own, while the channel as a whole had a quieter day than usual.
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- Channel
- The Root
- Subscribers
- 254,000 ▲ 4,000 this week
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 1,420,491
- Channel views, pace per day
- 154,247 (on a normal day: 233,326)
- Video published
- October 7, 2026
- Video views so far
- 43,895 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 64,760
The numbers
The report ran far ahead of a usual Short for this channel, and its comment section filled even faster than its views.
