cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3066501
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!
We need holidays and celebrations for all cultures.
It’s harder to be racist when you’ve got the day off because of someone’s cultural celebration.
Yeah true! We do have a school cultural celebration day and racism isn’t really an issue there.
Conservatives seem completely oblivious/wilfully ignorant about what Juneteenth.
My hot take is that racist bullies should be able to be punched/physically retaliated against by their victims without their victims being punished. When you take away the one avenue to retaliate against bullies when the schools never help, you breed more resentment and quiet anger and enables the bullies when the victims get punished from self defense.
That way, the kids will quickly learn how to be respectful of other kids’ race.
A couple bruises far from the stomach (a filipino saying) won’t kill anyone.
“Preventative” ain’t gonna happen. People are who they are, all you can do is apply correction.
Sorry, my understanding of “preventative” was that it implied the correction of the behaviour through education and learning. The post will be edited.
People are who they are
I may be interpreting this wrong, but I disagree with this statement. People aren’t born with racism, they learn it.
You’re right on your interpretation of the word and to disagree with the poster. They’re just some lib psuedophrenologist.
Yeah, I was thinking that. Their comment was unnecessary and questionable given the actual topic of the post and what they decided to reply to it with.
deleted by creator
