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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!

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1882413

Hi! I am a member of a race education group in my school (11 to 18) and we are creating a reading list for the library. Our library isn't very diverse right now (most books are written by white people about the West) and we need books on race education (privilege, discrimination, etc.) and on the history (precolonial, colonial and postcolonial, could be on neocolonialism too) and culture of underrepresented people.

Please keep in mind that these books should be acceptable by the school and approachable by students who would be unlikely to accept or read very progressive material, so themes that strongly (just strongly) contradict Western narratives should be avoided.

For example, a book on the colonisation of Palestine that exposes the oppressive nature of Zionism is mostly fine, but a book presenting Hamas as a liberation group would not be accepted (and actually illegal in my country).

You can reply with books or other reading lists that we could then review and add. I'll finish this post with some examples of books on the reading list (keep in mind that it was for Black History Month, so all of the examples are on black people):

African Empires by Lyndon, Dan
Black Power: The Politics of Liberation In America by Carmichael, Stokely; Hamilton, Charles V
I Heard What You Said by Boakye, Jeffrey
The Assassination of Lumumba by Witte, Ludo de.
White privilege: the myth of a post-racial society by Bhopal, Kalwant

Thanks in advance!