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!

  • temp_acc [none/use name]
    ·
    4 months ago

    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.

    • CommunistCuddlefish [she/her]
      ·
      4 months ago

      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.