“Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, money please.”
“Me Chinese, me so dumb, me put finger in my bum.”
Growing up, slurs were a way of life. Suburban London, Ont., in the early ’80s wasn’t exactly multicultural, and I was one of my grade school’s sole visible minority students.
My father, a third-generation Japanese-Canadian from the school of hard knocks, had decidedly non-PC advice: “Hit ‘em back harder! Make sure they cry.” So the girl who made slitty eyes at me was mocked for being fat, the boy who shoved me and called me “Chink” got pushed to the ground and taunted with “Your dad’s just a janitor!” for good measure.
This was the law of the jungle. Do I cringe today as I think about that — about making fun of kids with weight problems or blue-collar roots? Yes, I do.
And yet… it also doesn’t. Times were different. I defended myself — and recess continued, unabated, for us all.
different eras, different approaches
Recently, my seven-year-old daughter told me a boy in her Grade 2 class had made fun of her with a schoolyard rhyme I’m all too familiar with. Though taken aback, I wasn’t surprised. I was expecting this. Every parent of a visible minority child does. The question isn’t if; it’s when. And when it happens, what will you do?
Here’s what I did:
- Responded with my Empathetic Mom voice. (Not my On-The-War-Path Mom voice.) “That’s awful! I’m glad you told me about it though. Let’s talk with your teacher so she can help us get to the bottom of this.”
- Called her school, hoping to catch her teacher (unfortunately, the office was closed).
- Wrote a polite letter to her teacher, CC’ing the principal, outlining what had occurred, highlighting hot-button words such as “bullying.” I said we expected an apology from the perpetrator, and asked for a meeting to discuss what actions the school planned to take.
Over-react much? Not really. My spell-check edited out the “%$#@*!!!”s and, as my husband, a teacher himself, pointed out, letters show school administrators you’re willing to spend time on this little project, this matter of making sure your child isn’t racially harassed at school. Letters also create a paper trail from day one, so no one can ever claim this is the first they’ve heard of the problem.
My daughter loves her school. I love her school. But you have to prepare for the worst, even while hoping for the best, right?
Long story short: the teacher was sympathetic, the boy apologized, the principal phoned to tell
me they were taking it seriously and this was the first racial incident she’d heard of at the school. When it happened again (same rhyme, different perpetrator), it was the same drill, except presumably, the school’s second racial incident. Were the school authorities sympathetic? Absolutely. Did the second boy apologize? Yes. Will it happen again? No doubt.
And if you’re reading this as a parent to a minority or mixed-race child, it’ll happen to him or her too. Here’s an action plan for dealing.
check your emotions and talk to the teacher
“Parents should never approach a teacher angry. Take some time to calm down and make sure you’ve spoken to your child thoroughly and understand the entire situation,” says Lisa Chu*, a Toronto grade school teacher.
We know: easier said than done. “A parent volunteer mentioned to me she’d overheard two kids taunting my daughter, Cheyna,” says Amanda Hussain*, also from Toronto. “I was furious! I had a flashback to the racial bullying I’d experienced at that same school, starting in that very same classroom at the same age,” says Hussain, whose daughter was then in junior kindergarten. Even if you approach your child’s teacher the same day the incident happened, consider waiting to discuss the incident further. Just say, “Evan was called “Paki’ today by Ryan. I’m too upset to talk right now but can you investigate and can we talk tomorrow?”
For some parents, linguistic or economic barriers can be a challenge when it comes to teacher meetings. If so, delegate a liaison, says Luigi Iannacci, a former elementary teacher, now assistant professor in the faculty of education at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., and co-editor of Early Childhood Curricula: Reconceptualist Perspectives. “I’ve observed a relative or family friend who’s more proficient in English or who understands how to navigate school systems, successfully advocate on a child’s behalf,” whether by attending meetings, or by writing letters, says Iannacci, adding that most school boards can locate a translator upon request.
write down the facts
Ask your kid more about what happened, using non-leading questions.
Opt for: “What did she say?,” “And what did you say?” and “What did she say next?”
Not: “And then after she insulted you and your Afro, what other ways did she bully you?”
Take notes. State what happened, the names of people involved, the effect on your child (schools need to know when and how they may be failing in their mandated responsibility to provide a safe environment, says Iannacci). Bring your notes to your meeting and/or use them to write your letter to the teacher or principal.
be prepared for surprises
“Schools have no tolerance for racial slurs or taunting,” says Chu. On the other hand, school principals have latitude in disciplinary measures. (More on this later.)
Also, once the teacher investigates the matter, you may learn something new. “There can be times where both parties are guilty, no matter what kind of situation you’re dealing with,” says Chu. Perhaps your child told you he was called a “Wop,” but neglected to mention this came after he called his gym partner a “Mangiacake.” Shocking, right?
Just as shockingly, there are cases when a teacher just doesn’t see what the big deal is. Hussain discovered Cheyna had been brushed off by her JK teacher when she’d attempted to tell him about the classmates who’d racially taunted her — and threatened to throw her into the tiger cage on the upcoming class trip, if she told on them. The terrified four-year-old hadn’t mentioned the incident to her mom (which is fairly common when kids don’t want to worry or embarrass their parents, says Iannacci). If it weren’t for the parent volunteer, there’s a chance the incident would have gone unreported.
Hussain confronted the teacher. “I told him off. I wasn’t going to sugarcoat my feelings about his inability to deal with a serious situation,” she says. The teacher agreed to speak to the other parents, and the girls apologized to Cheyna. “All’s forgiven,” Hussain says. She’s even become good friends with one of the other parents.
be prepared for more surprises
Bad news first: School administrators tend to follow progressive discipline strategies that include concern for mitigating factors — which may explain why the troubled lad who called your son “rag head” and tripped him on the playground (again) wasn’t suspended. So you may have to work your way up the educational food chain: classroom teacher, principal, superintendent or school board trustee, if you’re unhappy with the outcome of each meeting.
But here’s the good news. The vast majority of Canadian kids are decent — and they have strong bullshit detectors. Personally, I think they’re the ones who’ll change their schools.
In April 2009, Jack Kang, a straight-A Grade 9 student in Keswick, Ont., acted in self-defence after a classmate called him racial epithets and punched him, bloodying his lip. A third-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, Kang used his weaker hand, his left, to deal a defensive blow — breaking his harraser’s nose.
Kang, like the instigator, was suspended. Unlike the instigator, however, Kang was also threatened with expulsion. And charged with assault.
Within days, students at Keswick High had organized a hundreds-strong walkout and rally to protest the school’s treatment of Kang — and complacency around racism and bullying.
“The school administration doesn’t deal with bullying or racism,” says Breanna Pynn, one of the organizers. Pynn, then in Grade 11, says she’d experienced bullying herself, and a typical administration response was “come back if there are more problems, and then we’ll deal with it,” she says.
“I don’t think suspensions happen to bullies, but there have been incidents where people being bullied retaliated and got suspended,” says Pynn, who adds, “I have no tolerance for racism. I wanted to support Jack 100 percent.”
Mathew Winch, another organizer, then in Grade 12, says injustice motivated students to action. “Jack had punched somebody in self-defence and was going to be expelled! That’s just wrong. So we decided to speak up and say we didn’t want him to be kicked out. It definitely raised eyebrows and the school realized it was a bigger deal then they thought it would be,” says Winch.
Winch, a peer mediator, helped ease Kang’s attacker back into the school community after his suspension. “He knows what he did was wrong,” says Winch. In fact, both he and Kang apologized to one another soon after the fight and, according to newspaper reports, the assault charge against Kang was dropped partly due to repeated requests by the injured teen and his parents.
“I think this experience has brought us closer as a school and as a community,” says Winch.
keep calm and carry on
Sometimes I find myself thinking about the Keswick teens. What would’ve happened if Jack Kang had waited out the epithets, absorbed the blows, and walked to the office to complain, rather than defending himself?
Would he have maintained his self-esteem? Would the school administration have stepped in where in the past it had allegedly failed? Would the instigator have stopped on his own?
Or did things improve because Kang — plus Winch, Pynn and hundreds more — sent a clear message where the school administration would not?
I ask myself this as I flip through my folder of race-related school communications: two multi-page
letters, notes taken during my teacher/principal meeting, a copy of the school board’s progressive
discipline policy. Two incidents in, I’m content with how my daughter’s school — and the boys’ parents — responded to our complaints.
But at the same time, I wonder what good a paper trail will be once the kids are older and less easily influenced by authority.
Envisioning my daughter at age 14 or 15, I ask myself if I’d be willing to undercut the self-confidence of an articulate type-A young adult with platitudes like “Don’t stoop to their level. Walk away and tell a teacher. Then tell me and dad and we’ll take it from there, sweetie.”
Hell no. One day she’s going to have to stand up for herself.
Article notwithstanding, writer Yuki Hayashi is angst-free and dreams of a culturally harmonious United Nations of Ikea.
Names have been changed
For more advice on tackling prejudice check out:
Photo by John Cullen
