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When racism creeps into school life
“For two and a half years, my son was the Punching bag at this school,” says Asha right away. For her two children, who are Black, elementary school was not a safe place for them, to the point where she decided to homeschool them. Racist incidents, intimidation, physical assaults — they saw all the colors from 2015 to 2018 at Saint-Clément-Est elementary school and at Saint-Clément Academy in Mount Royal. The harassment started with racist insults from other students. Elias, her boy, was then attacked several times. During an incident with a comrade, he was seriously injured in one eye. He was eight years old at the time.
“I was afraid of losing him because the attacks intensified”, laments the mother. The nightmare that her son experienced from the first to the third year left a lasting impression. “It happened when he was too young. He suffered a lot, it left a trauma that has not been resolved,” she testifies from her home in Montreal. For Elias, the incidents follow one another, and the situation worsens to the point that in 2017, Asha removed him from Saint-Clément Est school to homeschool him. The mother of the family repeatedly notified the school administration that her children were victims of racism, to no avail. The school board is also called upon to act, without success.
Things are going from bad to worse. Ines*, Asha's daughter, was also a victim of racist bullying at school; her attitude was also blamed. In 2018, his teacher gave him an assignment containing the N-word and in which he was asked to find declensions for this term. Sixth grade students talk about the exercise with each other. “There were some who were not comfortable, who did not succeed or dared to put something on,” the mother of the two children tells us.
“It led to a discussion. Some people understood that this was not happening, that it was not a trivial term, that it was offensive,” she says. Asha decides to file a complaint with the Human Rights Commission. Last fall, she won her case. A story that repeats itself Unfortunately, Asha's story is similar to that of Adrienne Charles, another mother of two. In his case, the events took place beginning in 2016 at McCaig Elementary School in Rosemère, where Joel* and Avery* faced racist insults from their classmates:” Poop Face ”,” Nutella ”, comparison with gorillas and others. “In a math class, someone spoke to my son using the N-word out loud in front of the whole class,” testifies Ms. Charles. He started to cry.”
Despite numerous reports to the school and then to the Sir Wilfrid-Laurier School Board, the situation worsened until 2019. “It completely destroyed their self-esteem. The effect is real, and even now I have to work with my sons to help them live with it. There are a lot of scars, laments Ms. Charles, who herself had a severe depression. It destroys family life, it destroys parents.” The family is not at the end of its sorrows. Adriennes Charles must continue to send her children to school — “the lion's den”, as she calls it.
Joel, the eldest, is in high school, while Avery is still in elementary school. “I knew what they were up against, but could I do more than talk to the school principal and the school board? ” she asks. She denounces voluntary blindness on their part, who allegedly refused to act by referring to “isolated incidents”.
Black children treated differently
In Elias's case, a decision rendered by the Human Rights Commission reveals that the young boy would have been treated differently in terms of disciplinary measures: he would have been punished severely, while the involvement of other children would have been trivialized. Deprived of going out, notes in the agenda, summoning parents, writing letters of apology to the children he had defended himself against — the mom lists the various ways in which her boy was reprimanded.
“The other students didn't have to write an apology letter, just because they didn't have maturity,” she says. The mother believes that this situation echoes several studies conducted over the past 10 years that show that black children, especially boys, are much more likely to be punished at school. An inequity that is based on racial prejudices that affect racialized students.
According to research, these exaggerated disciplinary sanctions can then have negative consequences on the lives of young people, including conflicts with the law, a phenomenon known in the English-speaking world as” School-to-Prison Pipeline ”, that is to say a path leading young people “from school to prison”.
“According to racist stereotypes, black boys would be agitated, even impulsive, and not intelligent,” says Asha. A school director allegedly even told his boy that he would end up in prison at 14. Asha regrets that her children, especially her youngest, were considered problem children, who should change their attitude. Dr. Sonia Ben Soltane, an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa's School of Social Work and a specialist in anti-oppressive and anti-racist social work practices and interventions, notes that for racialized children, it's often double standards.
“Child bad behavior is often an expression of discomfort; it is forgotten in the case of racialized children,” she explains. They are also often treated like adults. When you're a racialized person, you don't have the right to make mistakes, you don't have the right to be upset; you have to be flawless all the time.”
Resources to protect children
“I didn't know my rights as a parent, the resources, the existence of CRARR or the fact that I could homeschool my children if they were at risk,” says Asha, who laments the lack of resources dedicated to children living in difficult situations at school. However, the mother thanks the Quebec Association for Home Education (AQED), whose support was very helpful. When she chose to remove her eight-year-old son from school, her decision was greeted with vehement by the school, and attempts were made to discourage her from doing so.
“As they do not accept home schooling, they sent the DPJ”, she reports. Asha met with an investigator twice before the case was closed. “The DPJ was used to increase harassment and increase our stress,” she said. Children are not only abused in families, there is abuse at school as well! Why isn't there a service to report these abuses? ”
Poorly-equipped teachers
By talking to other families who have also withdrawn their children from school, Asha realizes that many children experience bullying. According to the Public Education Act, every school must have an anti-bullying plan. According to Alex, a third-grade teacher, this is an issue that is very present in school culture. “We would be at the stage of having that for racial discrimination,” he adds. I think that, in the school environment, the perception is still that racism is subjective, that it is not systemic.” Rachel, who has been a teacher for 12 years, agrees.
“I often feel that for forms of bullying other than racism, things are taken into consideration more quickly,” she says. “There is a lack in the consistency of interventions and the force used. Especially when it comes to racial bullying, we are not well equipped or sufficiently supervised,” she believes. Both teachers believe that racial issues are unknown to school staff. There are no statistics on the percentage of racialized staff in schools, but Rachel and Alex find that their work environment is very homogeneous.
“What strikes me is that even if the student population is diversifying, the core of Montreal teachers is still very white,” says Rachel. “There is an under-representation in the staff, especially in executive positions,” adds Alex. In order to raise awareness among his students, he addresses issues of diversity and racism in his courses, in a manner appropriate to their age. He and Rachel are of the opinion that teachers should be trained. “We should talk about anti-racist education in initial training,” says Rachel, who believes that there should also be mandatory continuing education on the subject.
“With colleagues covered by Bill 21, we worked very hard for a year to ensure that there was an anti-racist committee in the union, which is one of the possible solutions that could be considered,” says Alex. He also believes that a reflection on pedagogy is necessary. “The government is in the process of adding professional skills and reviewing content to pay more attention to Indigenous realities,” he says of the measure, which he supports. But I think there is a refusal to do it for other racialized communities.”
Racism in schools: not just a children's issue
Ms. Ben Soltane collects testimonies on this subject as part of her work. “In my practice, what I am told is what children experience in the playground and in the classroom from other children, but also the inertia of the staff.”
In addition to the difficulty that a school-age child may have in reporting incidents, the way in which the authorities in charge deal with the situation can be problematic. “We minimize racist or racialist aggression, because we imagine that children do not measure the reach of their words,” says Sonia Ben Soltane.
Alex is seeing the effects on the schoolyard. “The burden is heavy for racialized students,” he says. The question is returned to them by asking them to prove that the other person did something wrong.” The discussion often revolves around how the child reacts rather than what they are going through. In addition, adults sometimes recreate these power dynamics.
“It could come from the staff. There is racism that is very typical of these environments,” says Ms. Ben Soltane. Rachel and Alex regularly hear discriminatory remarks about racialized parents or staff members from colleagues. “There are stereotypes that really remain,” Alex reports. “Management and teachers have more suspicion and less patience for black, Arab, and Latino parents in my opinion, and less patience for black, Arab, and Latino parents in my opinion,” he admits. I myself have biases to deconstruct. I am dealing with my own prejudices about parents.”
In 2018, while picking up her children from school, Ariane witnessed a serious incident when a student attacked her nine-year-old daughter with a knife on the grounds of a CSMB school. In addition to the severity of the attack, which requires staff on site to call the police, the mother laments the way she was treated by the school. “I felt prejudiced by adults, especially in the way the events were handled,” says Ariane, whose three children were attending elementary school at the time.
“I was asked if I had family in Rivière-des-Praires or in Montréal-Nord, although my family has lived in this neighborhood since the 1970s,” she says. In discussions with management, the mother also avoids raising her voice. “I don't get angry, not because I can't, but because I'm a black woman and if I get upset, it will escalate and work against me.” For her part, Asha also believes that the fact that she's a racialized woman and a single parent weighed in the balance. “I'm all alone.” take care of the children, and they knew that,” she said.
Ms. Ben Soltane believes that, although a lot of prejudices persist at school, things are changing. “There is an awareness in some quarters about racial and cultural prejudices against certain children and their families, and the impact that this has on the well-being of young people, the quality of service and how they experience certain difficult situations, for example being reported to the DPJ. The Laurent Commission provides a broader view of the situation, especially in other institutions such as hospitals and youth protection.”
A decision that has weight
Two years after the events, following a complaint filed with the Human Rights Commission through the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR), the Marguerite-Bourgeoys School Board, now the Marguerite-Bourgeoys School Service Center (CSSMB), was required to pay $65,000 to Asha's family for moral damages. The CSSMB will also have to prepare an anti-racism plan, including training on discrimination and racism.
This will be carried out by an expert in the field and must be monitored by the staff within one year. Under the Public Education Act, every school must have a plan to combat bullying and violence. That of the two schools in question — Saint-Clément-Est and the Académie Saint-Clément —, considered ineffective, must be reviewed. Their teaching materials will also be reviewed, a decision welcomed by the mother of the two children. The evidence mentions that Inès' teacher lacked sensitivity and trivialized the use of the N-word.
It is also said that the school board failed in its duty by not taking the necessary steps to correct the problem. It is also noted that the school authorities did not take the necessary measures to reassure Asha's children, in addition to blaming her son and minimizing the facts. Following the complaint filed by Adrienne Charles and CRARR, the Human Rights Commission is also asking the Sir Wilfrid-Laurier School Board and the Children's Elementary School to jointly pay the family $30,000 in moral damages. The plan to combat bullying and school bullying, which punishes racist incidents, should also be disseminated to all staff and students. Training should also be provided to staff. “This is a step in the right direction,” says Ms. Charles.
I am disappointed that the school board did not want to comply. I will continue this fight,” she said. Asha also hopes to see a change in the school system. After the failure of negotiations between the two parties, both cases will be brought before the Human Rights Tribunal. *First names have been changed to maintain anonymity.