Hi! I am a member of a race education group in my school (11 to 18). We were discussing instances of racism and came to the conclusion that the school - teachers, especially - were not giving proper or effective repercussions for racist incidents. Racism in the school is quite normalised, especially against Black and Asian students, including:
CW: list of racist incidents
- Calling black people “monkeys”, unnecessarily calling them “fast” and that they “should be at the back of the bus”
- Playing stereotypical Indian music and linking brown people to “curry” and tech-support scammers
- The Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees chant and mocking the Chinese language
Most teachers report the incident, triggering an investigation into what happened; the student(s) are usually suspended - possibly being temporarily transferred to another school - the offending student(s) are talked to by senior staff members and attend anti-racism sessions. This approach feels appropriate, although I want to hear your thoughts on it as racism is still a significant issue in the school.
In addition, quite a few teachers instead push to “settle the matter” in-class (say sorry, shake hands) or give lesser punishments that are intended for things like swearing or talking over the teacher. These are not appropriate punishments and shouldn’t be tolerated. Bigotry is never equivalent to just rude behaviour or minor arguments (that includes bullying).
The school administration has been made aware of our thoughts and fortunately they are very open to the idea of writing a clearer and more effective policy on racism in the school.
Do teachers need to be trained better on their tolerance of racism? Is the policy not corrective enough? How would you write a racism policy for a school for 11 to 18 year olds?
Thanks again!
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I think the main thing that your group needs to do, is train your fellow students to not tolerate this kind of behavior and call it out when they see it.
Yes; our primary aim is to educate people on racism as a means to prevent people from being racist in the first place. We’re also aiming to motivate students to report racist incidents as there is a culture of not snitching on other students, even with racism.
Peer pressure is FAR MORE powerful than what a teacher can do by themselves. I think that, ideally, if there was a racist incident that happened, and the teacher AS WELL as a group of students called it out as being unacceptable, that would be far more powerful and effective. Social shaming is a powerful thing and having students call out other students for racist behavior is far more powerful than a teacher or authority figure saying it’s bad by themselves.
Our group is composed of students only, and we believe that makes it more appealing and approachable to new members as there are usually no teachers there. We have had new members join the group because they wanted to report a racist incident, but they felt that a teacher wouldn’t do enough against it - or too intimidated - and that allowed us to collectively report a few students already!
Find some teachers that you think would be receptive, and ask them to join your group.
We plan to meet with the school leadership every month to discuss any concerns or plans we have. It would be nice for other teachers to come every once in a while, though maybe not in every session.
Back in the 90’s when I was in high school, my school had a zero tolerance policy. Anyone who used racist language, or committed violent acts against a minority was expelled. There were investigations, police were called, etc. But if the events were found to be race based, the perpetrator would be expelled. A black and Indian girl got int o a fight over a boy. The black girl called the Indian girl a sand n-word. Black girl got expelled. Another event was two friends calling each other the n-word, not even fighting, both got expelled due to the word being on the banned list. A teacher got fired for calling a Chinese kid something too, though don’t remember what it was. This was in LA California if that helps. My 5 years there, saw at least a dozen expelled or fired.
police were called
I don’t think calling the police would be a good idea given their reputation of brutality against people of color and the fact that it would rely on more of a tactic of fear against children.
My 5 years there, saw at least a dozen expelled or fired.
Firing teachers for racism is a good stance for me! We’ll probably still push for temporary suspension rather than expulsion unless they are a repeat offender.
Edit: Removed idea of calling the police as I have since changed my opinion.
I’m very far from an kind of authority on how to handle school discipline, but calling police to school seems like a very bad idea. Cops and prisons don’t solve problems.
Oh, I see. For me, I would evaluate the idea of calling the police to school like this:
- Further clarifies the weight of racist incidents and the zero-tolerance policy that the school has for it
- Relies on a tactic of fear, plus the police are a major source of racism
In that perspective, inviting the police does seem like a very bad idea. Though I still like the idea of at least including senior members of staff to talk to the students as they should further clarifiy the severity of racism.
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The risk with that is that corporal punishment increases offending behavior, not decreases it. The vast majority of the data is on violence committed by adults, but if violence committed by children works in a similar manner all that will do is make racist behavior more common.
Well then the administrators had better do something real about their spoiled racist students then. In the absence of administrative support to protect students of color against racism, violence on the targeted students’ part becomes necessary.
To clarify, all of the members of the group are students, including me.
Unironically the policy should be that you let and encourage people of color to beat their racist classmates and then have their back when they get in trouble for “violence”.
Honestly, I can understand that perspective and I know other schools that are far more diverse in their racial demographics (my school is predominantly white) in which students combat racism with violence. It definitely makes the victims of racism feel more welcome in the school, plus it does a good job at combating a culture of acceptance of racism.
Beating racists is the only thing that ever got them to atop attacking me (yes, attacking, because it doesn’t end with mere words). And it was nice when teachers looked the other way instead of bringing the hammer down on me (most brought the hammer down. Fuck those ones).
Ideally, a target of racist abuse attacking their racist classmates in retaliation would be excused to an extent in the same way a target of physical abuse attacking their abuser would be excused to an extent. Understanding why they reacted that way rather than the reaction itself allows for justification of their retaliation. However, there is little chance that school administration would consider permitting violence (even against racists), though I’m sure that we could push for a reduced punishment as the repercussions for the two parties should never be equal.
Damn I misread your original post and thought you were a teacher, didn’t realize you’re a student. Also my comment got removed by mods with the hilarious but understandable reason, “do not advocate for children to beat the shit out of each other.” I’ve got mixed feelings about that but for the sake of complying with the commissars of discourse I will clarify I am only talking about my personal experiences trying to deal with racism when I was isolated from any support in a system that was so profoundly racist that it denied me safety when I went through proper channels and only protected my abusers. I was forced to defend myself, I didn’t rush to it. If you have other options then good for you! Please use those instead of mine! I wish I’d had a group of peers I could have turned to to stand up with me and for me instead of having to fight outnumbered on my own!
So if you’re in a majority white school it’s going to be an uphill battle; the administration may be geared toward catering to them more than to defending you. One thing you could try to do is organize with other students of color and any white people who want to be your accomplices to make a solidarity action network and, if something happens that affects one of you but the administrators won’t take appropriate action (e.g. they brush aside racist slurs and hate speech as “boys being boys”, minimize it by calling it “bullying” instead of the correct term of “hate speech” , punish “both sides” in a fight even if the white kids started it by doing or threatening hate crimes), then you can take collective N O N V I O L E N T action together in any of the following ways:
- Class walkouts
- Disruptive protests as a group in the hallways to make people late for class, or make it so loud that teachers can’t focus and teach effectively (if you do go with a noise route please try to be intersectional and have earplugs on hand to hand out to noise-sensitive autistic kids for whom the noise could be very upsetting)
- Disruptive protests as a group outside the school
- Asking your parents to call in and harangue the administrators for not keeping children of color safe from hate speech
- Social media campaigns about the hate speech problem at your school, idk what platforms the kids are using nowadays but in the time of boomers it would have been something like making a facebook page and group to discuss it and sharing it widely, maybe passing that along to some local news group once the group got enough traction
- Basically anything that will be disruptive, get attention, create buzz and negative press for the school administrators. None of them want to deal with being known as the administrators who let a racism crisis run rampant in their schools and it’ll put them in a spot where they feel they have to do something to save face. It’ll surely be insufficient, but you have to know where your opponent is soft to hit them where they’re vulnerable.
These still sound pretty confrontational but confrontation is the only way to not get swept under the rug. Formal complaints within the system just get thrown in the trash bin. And let’s be honest, it is extra hard to learn anything when you’re hypervigilant about racist abuse. The white kids don’t have to have their learning impeded by that shit, it’s not fair that y’all have to.
Damn I misread your original post and thought you were a teacher, didn’t realize you’re a student. Also my comment got removed by mods with the hilarious but understandable reason, “do not advocate for children to beat the shit out of each other.” I’ve got mixed feelings about that but for the sake of complying with the commissars of discourse I will clarify I am only talking about my personal experiences trying to deal with racism when I was isolated from any support in a system that was so profoundly racist that it denied me safety when I went through proper channels and only protected my abusers. I was forced to defend myself, I didn’t rush to it. If you have other options then good for you! Please use those instead of mine! I wish I’d had a group of peers I could have turned to to stand up with me and for me instead of having to fight outnumbered on my own!
That’s perfectly understandable! Thinking about such methods is justifiable from your own personal experience and it’s one that a lot of students - me included - have used or contemplated from time to time.
So if you’re in a majority white school it’s going to be an uphill battle; the administration may be geared toward catering to them more than to defending you.
Honestly, (some of) the school administration has been really welcoming and open (or at least pretend) to our ideas. Though we haven’t really had any proper disagreements, so I can’t sure that they will be consistently welcoming. And generally, the white students were the most critical of us. Though in less of a complete dismal of us, and more of a “don’t change the system” way
But I know that school administration are inherently designed to look “modern” and we will likely have to push it to combat racism in the school, whether through dialogue, petitions, protests or demonstrations. My other concern - especially if we fail to put enough pressure on the school to make changes - is that as a race education group, our presence would help make the school to look “modern” without them doing a lot; I wouldn’t be surprised if they were welcoming to our ideas for this reason.
then you can take collective N O N V I O L E N T action together in any of the following ways:
Speaking from my last point, this was my approach forward if we couldn’t get our ideas heard, or if racism persisted to be an issue. It would be great if we could collect instances of racism - especially ones that were handled badly - and then used that as a basis for a school-wide demonstration or protest!
Also, your written ideas sound effective to me so I’ll keep them in mind when the time comes.
These still sound pretty confrontational but confrontation is the only way to not get swept under the rug. Formal complaints within the system just get thrown in the trash bin. And let’s be honest, it is extra hard to learn anything when you’re hypervigilant about racist abuse. The white kids don’t have to have their learning impeded by that shit, it’s not fair that y’all have to.
Definitely! Our current approach is still dialogue (though we have considered demonstrating and have used petitions as well), but if the school administration stops listening, we are very willing to engage in nonviolent action. If nothing does truly change, then we’ll make sure that they make the needed changes so that the school can do its job properly of stopping racism in the school. Your nonviolent action ideas sound effective to me o I’ll keep them in mind when the time comes.
Bless you for doing this. It’s really nice to see younger people trying to work together to defend yourselves against systemic racism better than I was able to defend myself. I’m glad my nonviolent ideas sound like they could help. Good luck! If you get any updates and can report back without doxxing yourself I’d love to hear, but of course opsec must come first – do not doxx yourself.
Thanks! I will be sure to update you if anything major happens.
Soup that makes you blind for a day
I would personally do a policy to post their pictures on the walls and publicly shame them for their offence with that. Teaches them its not acceptable and that it’s something they should be shunned by everybody for. Could help create a mob mentality against racism too
I would personally do a policy to post their pictures on the walls and publicly shame them for their offence with that. Teaches them its not acceptable and that it’s something they should be shunned by everybody for. Could help create a mob mentality against racism too
Quite a few of us in the group did consider this idea, but I highly doubt the school would allow that as the students and parents may see it as a form of harassment. We would like more combative measures against racism, though.
Digressing: don’t have much experience with this unfortunately because in my highschool that had Chinese people as the plurality race and less white people than POC, there was actually very little racism, and the one small group of white kids who hated Asians transferred out specifically there were too many Asians so they kinda solved our own problems for us
That does sound like a more welcoming space! In your case, the varying attitudes towards racism between white and non-white people was very apparent to the point that racism wasn’t even an issue. I did discuss the idea that white people have to do more to combat racism as they will naturally find it harder to condemn something they don’t experience in this comment.
but I highly doubt the school would allow that as the students and parents may see it as a form of harassment
Is there any harm in pitching the idea? Obviously not as your only one but as part of a group of solutions for your teachers to okay and sign off on
Could even do some sly tricks where most of the options are obvious No but then sneak this option in as the “moderate” position
Is there any harm in pitching the idea? Obviously not as your only one but as part of a group of solutions for your teachers to okay and sign off on
Not really, though I am certain that that policy would not be allowed. Maybe I’ll pitch it as part of a range of possible approaches, although the policy itself is a major privacy violation (along with legal repercussions), especially as the students are children.
I do like the idea of publicly shaming students, though. What do you think about these approaches?
- Name-and-shame lists in classrooms:
- Consistent source of shame for the student, though this approach would be more effective for younger students than older students.
- Public apology:
- The offending student(s) would apologise in an assembly in front of the students in their grade. Would greatly increase their shame and hold them to account in front of all of their classmates.
Admittedly, it’s hard thinking of policies centred around public shaming without being too oriented towards younger students (below 11) or being legally questionable for children (above 18). I’m sure that your idea would be more accepted in a university, for example.
Could even do some sly tricks where most of the options are obvious No but then sneak this option in as the “moderate” position
Haha tempting but I don’t know if that will work as a strategy! Though in our meetings with school leadership, I’m sure that individual members will make similar points to the ones that you are making to see how receptive they are to them.
What do you think about these approaches?
I’m hesitate to give any advice since I know nothing about your school and this situation. I also wasn’t involved in any hs activities
Okay, that’s fine. I will be taking all of these ideas into account, then. Thanks!
- Name-and-shame lists in classrooms:
