Community activist and founder of the Black Child Agenda Cheryl Phoenix has recently launched a petition calling for an “independent inquiry into exclusions of Black children from school,” and action to stop disproportionate and discriminatory exclusions of Black children. citing the startling statistic that “some Black boys are 168x’s more likely to be permanently excluded from school than a white British girl.” (https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/246177).
This figure is based on the government’s own data from the 2011 school census and highlighted in the 2012 report by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner School Exclusions Inquiry. (1)
Every now and again a case rises up that captures widespread community attention and galvanises activity. A recent example was the (ultimately successful) campaign against Fulham Boys School’s dreadlocks discrimination waged by the family of Chikayzea Flanders. (2) There’s also the case of the son of activist Juliet Lopez (who was, somewhat ironically also involved in Chikayzea’s campaign) whose shirt was scrawled with racist epithets by classmates. (3) That we know about these cases at all is a testament to the parents and/or supportive networks in possession of media savvy to publicise them. However, are attributes most parents do not possess, meaning their stories will largely go unreported and perhaps represent the proverbial tip of a discriminatory iceberg.
On the other hand some might argue that the children of activists are deliberately targeted as a disruption strategy. The case of current National Union of Students (NUS) president Shakira Martin may lend credence to this particular view. Having moved out to Sidcup four years ago due to domestic violence, she placed her daughters Kai’shay, 7, and Kiara, 5, in Sherwood Park Primary School in September 2018. Although “totally aware that my area is predominately white and the likelihood of the school lacking in diversity was probable,” she asserted “that wasn’t a deterrent for me to not send my children there as long as they felt safe and comfortable.” (4)
Unfortunately ‘comfort’ was the last thing the girls experienced. They were subjected to persistent taunts by white pupils like being prevented from using the toilets for ‘being Black,’ having “ugly skin that looks like poo” and being from an “ugly family.” The tipping point for Sis. Shakira was when Kiara was left trembling after the Headteacher ignored her during an award ceremony in front of the whole school. (5)
Wary of a defensive response, Sis. Shakira adopted a measured approach when addressing the matter with the school. Somewhat predictably though, her concerns were met with the ‘racism doesn’t happen at my school’ response. (6)
Sis. Shakira rejected the school’s offer to lead an assembly on racism, seeing this as their responsibility. The school refused to sanction any staff for letting the racist abuse of her children continue unabated but after her viral video, exposing the racism her children were suffering they ceded to an ‘independent’ investigation (although it turns out the investigator was far from independent). All of which compelled her to take her children out of the school, while continuing to pursue the case. (7)
She then approached her local MP James Brokenshire, the local counsellor, Department for Education, and the local authority Education Welfare Department, Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO). The latter of which replied in a remarkable e-mail:
“While the issue of race and how children and adults manage difference is an ongoing process for all schools, there is nothing about your concerns that suggest that any adult at this school has done anything to harm your children. I do not think that the incidents that you report rise to the level of safeguarding. As a consequence, I do not intend to take any further action and will close this matter to the LADO. Under the circumstances, I can see no reason why you should keep your children off school. I think that you need to talk to the school about your children returning back to learning as quickly as possible.” (8)
She has since placed her children in another in the borough and has launched a legal case and is seeking crowd funding to support it:
“My children were the victims of racist abuse at school. I’m fighting for justice but have been told this kind of behaviour is ‘not a safeguarding issue’. I need your help. If you believe no children should be treated this way and racist abuse in our schools should be considered a safeguarding issue please contribute and share this page with your family and friends on social media” (9)
The campaign has so far raised £870 of its £5,000 target (https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/safeguarding-our-children-from/).
The LADO position is interesting in light of the ‘Prevent Duty’ placed on education institutions by the government:
“In order for schools and childcare providers to fulfil the Prevent duty, it is essential that staff are able to identify children who may be vulnerable to radicalisation, and know what to do when they are identified. Protecting children from the risk of radicalisation should be seen as part of schools’ and childcare providers’ wider safeguarding duties, and is similar in nature to protecting children from other harms (e.g. drugs, gangs, neglect, sexual exploitation), whether these come from within their family or are the product of outside influences.” (10)
The duty was essentially brought in to tackle ‘Islamic radicalisation’ and that has been it’s primary focus and any concerns by staff should be referred as a safeguarding issue. However, Islamist referrals have been falling of late and fell by 14% in 2017-18. During the same period however, far-right (i.e. white) referrals rocketed by a staggering 36% against a backdrop of white terror suspect arrests increasing by 77%. (11) This could be interpreted as the real ‘Brexit Dividend’. (12)
Within this context, Afrikan children are at increasing risk in school and nursery from radicalised white children and it’s anybody’s guess if any attend Sherwood Park Primary School of if the school have given this any consideration.
An additional point of view argues that LADO intervention, Prevent Duty activity, and school investigations will not and cannot get to the heart of the matter that the British Education System and all of it’s institutions from pre-school to undergraduate and beyond are racist and as such dangerous for Afrikan children and young people. (13), as Warrior Scholar Mwalimu Baruti explains in his exceptional new book, To Educate A People:
“These socially beleaguered parents saw one-way integration into whiteness i.e. fighting to have their children held hostage in constantly terrorizing, hateful, all white classes as their only salvation. As so many of us still do, they believed in the superiority of european people, culture and science and fought to have yurugu embrace their children by guiding them along sacrificial academic paths of subservient invisibility. As master subintegrationists they saw becoming the european as their ideal escapist aspiration. The only successful learning environment they could imagine fit what sociologists have referred as the ‘hostage theory’” (14)
In such a conception only a truly Afrikan-centered learning environment will suffice for every Afrikan child. In light of this Baba Baruti offers some stark words how we evaluate our efforts.
“The only true measure of our worth and work on the educational frontline is the degree to which we have consciously, consistently and progressively moved toward Afrikan liberation, empowerment and sovereignty… ” (15)
Adherence to these principles would demand a different overstanding of the concept of safeguarding that prioritises our children’s holistic well-being at any cost.
(1) Office of the Children’s Commissioner School Exclusions Inquiry (2012) “They never give up on you”. p. 9 https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/They-never-give-up-on-you-final-report.pdf
(2) Neil Murphy (13/09/18) Boy, 12, WINS legal battle against school over dreadlocks that teachers ordered him to cut off. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/boy-12-wins-battle-against-13237538
(3) Martin Robinson (19/06/18) Mother’s fury after son, 15, who is only black pupil in his school year is racially abused by classmates who scrawled ‘go back to the jungle’ and ‘n*****’ on his end of year uniform. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5860673/Only-black-pupil-school-year-racially-abused-classmates.html
(4) Leah Sinclair (29/03/19) NUS President Shakira Martin Calls Out School For Racism https://www.voice-online.co.uk/article/nus-president-shakira-martin-calls-out-school-racism
(5) Ibid.
(6) Ibid.
(7) Ibid.
(8) Shakira Martin (29/03/19) Safeguarding Our Children from Institutional Racism in British Schools. https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/safeguarding-our-children-from/
(9) Ibid.
(10) Department For Education (2015) The Prevent duty: Departmental advice for schools and childcare providers. p. 5. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/439598/prevent-duty-departmental-advice-v6.pdf
(11) Lizzie Dearden (13/12/18) Number of far-right referrals to counter-extremism programme Prevent rockets 36% in a year. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/prevent-extremism-figures-far-right-terrorism-islamist-statistics-isis-referalls-a8681221.html
(12) Kimberly McIntosh, Rabia Mirza and Dr Irum Shehreen Ali (2018) Brexit for BAME Britain Investigating the impact. https://www.rota.org.uk/sites/default/files/events/ROTA%20Brexit%20for%20BME%20briefing%20221118.pdf
(13) Sally Weale (20/03/19) Students occupy Goldsmiths in protest at institutional racism. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/mar/20/students-occupy-goldsmiths-in-protest-at-institutional-racism
(14) Mwalimu Baruti (2019) To Educate A People: Thoughts From The Center. Akoben House. p. 219
(15) Baruti (2019) p. 600.
We ask the question:
Is racism a safeguarding/child protection issue?
1) Are you aware of Sis’ Shakira’s campaign and have you supported it?
2) Are white children being radicalised in schools?
3) Why have far-right prevent duty referrals risen by 36%?
4) Are our being “held hostage” in the school system?
5) Are Afrikan-centered institutions the answer?
6) If so what would it take to build them?