Racism in schools is a reality that is often not faced by many people. Racism can often be covert. Racism for BAME students is a reality that often plays out in different ways. Often people will argue about the extent of racism in the UK with some saying that it has had a huge improvement whilst others say that it is a huge problem all through UK.

Some teachers have often said that they are cautious of discussing race in school because of how students will feel about the topic. Especially when the ratio between BAME’s and white students is wide. There is a a lot of white bias and prejudiced ideas about people from different cultures that students have often taken as trust. The most notable often being “black people can’t swim”. However, the context behind this has never been explained. For white people, pools have always been widely available whilst for those of poorer backgrounds, often those of BAME backgrounds such luxuries were never afforded and their access to pools or communal pools was often limited.

Often racism has included:

• People shouting the Paki word at other students
• People (white) casually calling each other the n-word as joke thinking it is funny
• Asking questions about their background but the person being from a completely different background e.g. calling someone Paki or Muslim when in reality they are Sikh but making it seem like it is the same thing.
• Picking on British-Pakistani kid by calling him “Taliban”

Indirect Racism

It is not limited to direct racism. Teachers who have worked in white working-class schools have not necessarily seen any direct racism towards BAME kids or teachers but quite a bit of casual racism. For example, If someone needs to haggle a price, they might refer to a Indian friend saying “our Indian friend can haggle for us”. Other causal racism examples can be seen by the type of groups that often stick together. White’s will stick with White’s whilst Black students will stick to black, same for Asians etc.

Tackling this sort of racism in schools is so important so that students do not go forward into adult life thinking it is okay to behave like this with their co-workers or anyone really that they may meet in real life.

It’s easy to punish a student for saying for example the “N” word, but punishment will not necessarily drive home why it is so wrong to have used that word. A better method would be to invite the student to a meeting, or to hold a classroom discussion without naming the student who has been racist, to discuss the racist topic at hand in a open and honest way and have an open dialogue about racism.

The student/s can be asked to research and find out why a certain term is being used in a particular way and what is the history behind it so that they are able to get some context. E.g. most people know that the “N” word was often linked to slavery, but a lot of the times the main purpose of it was to degrade and subjugate black people.

From this, you can move forward to get students to start thinking about things or words that they might personally find offensive and why they feel like this to help them put things into context. Often one of the biggest challenges of such discussions is giving them the time they deserve, rushing through such discussions will not bring change. The topic is a sensitive, personal discussion. In order for students to be able to ponder on racism and why it exists, discussions need to be incorporated into school syllabuses and cannot just be swept under the rug after a brief monologue.

How to tackle Racism with children

• Do – Teach child that there is such a thing as overt racism and also systemic racism and describe the ways in which systemic racism can happen that may not be as apparent to those who don’t experience it so that they get a good understanding of this.
• Don’t – Have the class perform some exercise to categorise some as “more privileged” than others and definitely don’t make it worse by categorising some as oppressive because of their “privilege” – such things will only go onto justify racism a lot of them time which is what you are trying to avoid!
• Do – Teach that racism is contextual. A Hispanic could be treated as white in some cases and as a minority in other cases. A black person could be treated more favourably over a white person or a Asian person etc in certain cases. Racists can be of any race. Racism does not necessarily have to come from a white person although that is the one that is most commonly known.
• Don’t – Teach that privilege is absolute and tied to skin colour. Yes white people are, in general, less subject to prejudice. But not all white individuals are more privileged compared to other black individuals. Social class can also come into play. It is important to teach students to treat other students like they are individuals. Not a statistical block. Call it “prejudice against minorities” rather than “white privilege” as this just implies only white are prejudice when certain cases Black people can be racism towards Asians and wise versa.