I never thought I’d have to deal with this, but here we are. It’s not common sense that racism is shameful and bad.
I teach a group of fourteen-year-olds who still think dropping the n-word is funny, but I can deal with those situations and made it pretty clear to them that if I ever hear it (or anything similar) in my classroom, they will have earned a ticket to the principal’s office and I will be talking to their parents.
However, there is a more complex situation that has been occupying my mind lately and I would appreciate your thoughts and advice.
A kid turned up to my class wearing ladder laced boots with white laces. (For those who don’t know, this means the person is a white supremacist, lace colour was/is used to showcase identity and can differ from place to place) It caught my eye when I heard her asking a friend if her laces were visible enough the way she folded the cargo pants she was wearing. I asked her if she was aware of the meaning of white laces and she said yes, but added that according to her skinhead friend, lace code was no longer taken seriously. I told her that while that is true, you can still get in a lot of trouble in certain places and that I do not want to see it on her again.
I also mentioned it to another teacher who immediately went and talked to her about it, but I feel like she is going to keep wearing the laces as a fuck you.
She wants to be cool and edgy, but she has no idea what shaky ground she’s on. She often makes racist remarks, but nothing that could get her into trouble so far.
I will stand my ground and speak to the principal about this if she continues wearing the laces, but very very few people know about their meaning so it’s not taken as seriously as if she wore a swastika or something similar. Still, I told her that if I know (and I’m not in those circles) then someone else will, too.
The bigger question here is sensitization, how I could not just enforce not showcasing racism symbols as a part of her outfit but to get through to her and the others who might think they are cool and edgy.
Thank you for reading!
Unfortunately, the only working solution for any unawareness and insensitivity, where racism or homophobia (etc.) are the prime extreme examples is… Education.
To make it worse, the person on the other side has to be willing to ingest and incorporate it into their newly forming worldview.
Fighting or brute forcing it can make the situation worse, especially during more rebellious years and can have a serious long term destructive fallout.
It would be easier to fully grasp the situation with some basic knowledge about your whereabouts, at least country — from the story, I am assuming somewhere in the United States.
I’ve never heard about the shoelaces thing and from a distant perspective I see it as totally crazy thing — both ways. Anyone should wear anything they feel like wearing without any burden, considering the basic social norms, I would like to recall here the protest about red underwear where women were fighting with an (idiotic) idea and presumption that red underwear means “down to fuck” or even “invitation to rape”.
I don’t have any great answers but I have a story from my teens.
There was a situation at my school where some of my classmates were making fun of one guy crying, obviously some classics were dropped “don’t be a baby / pussy” and so on. I was lucky because I had good interactions with most of the teachers, especially when it boiled down to dropping some ideas or organizing things. Even luckier, the school counselor was my previous teacher and liked me enough to invite me from time to time, asking questions if I see any bullying, stealing or what surprised me the most, why and which teachers were mostly disliked by my class and other classes. Once, I told her about the situation mentioned before and how nobody reacted and how unfair it all felt. She noted everything and promised me to do something about it and really delivered on that promise. She managed to organize some special obligatory classes about expressing emotions, bullying and different types of violence.
It didn’t stop everything dysfunctional but made a tiny difference. Especially when it came to reacting during situations like that.
We need many, many tiny differences to grow / learn / evolve.
Constantly.
Thank you for being a Teacher, you seem invested and it feels like you actually care — don’t cross anyone out, every kid that causes more problems than others, is near being expelled or punished for their behavior, is the one that actually needs some kind of guidance and mentoring the most.
Thank you, this is great advice. I am not from the US but rather an Eastern European country with lots of POC in my area - in fact, our sister school has about 90% POC.
I also believe that everybody should wear whatever they want and make it a point to encourage my young students’ discovery of their unique style - lots of funky hair colours and split brows these days. However, lace code IS a thing (even if not very well recognised anymore, it’s still used in many places) and she knew about it when she chose to wear the white laces, which is what bothers me here. If it was ignorance, I’d give her a heads up to avoid her getting into real trouble because of her choice of footwear but she did it knowing what it means and even made it a point for them to be fully visible.
It is clear to me that I cannot fight fire with fire and I want what’s best for my student’s personal development, but at the same time I feel like I need to be very clear about the fact that no racism will be tolerated in my classroom, just like I wouldn’t tolerate any physical or verbal abuse. Pretty much everything is a go, we have great discussions about different topics and they are a great group of kids, but racism is a very real issue in our area. We do not have any POC in our group but imagine if we had… There are plenty of POC kids in the school and I want them to feel safe more than I want this kid to wear whatever she wants.
Your story highlights how important my reaction is here, and since it’s my first year on the job, I’m really taking it seriously. However, I’m only part time and spend little time with them so I cannot really organise any workshops or lectures, but hopefully our principal will be open to the idea.
How do you think I could approach her in this case? I am generally liked by the students, but I just cannot seem to get through to her.
I will just address this really quickly: I am struggling with giving any advice and the POC term.
Advice, even the best, can misguide or cause harm down the road and POC is just a weird abbreviation for me, mixed / different / multiple races feels fine but POC just pulls some wrong strings in me. That might be a preference or just being picky about english language, but that’s where I stand.
With all that out of the way, let me try to approach the other matters constructively but let’s be honest, it mostly will be just guessing.
So, as you say, there was a conscious intention behind that choice. Someone else in the comments created a very good list to pick from, but my bets will be similar, there is a reason for that choice and most often than not, this reason will be rooted at home environment.
So, first line of approach for me would be understanding her and the background, where that idea even originated from to express something like that in this way? Maybe from parents? Maybe friends? Internet? Maybe she, personally had some unpleasant interaction the other day with someone with a different skin color than hers and that’s her reaction to all that. But, again, going back to the list from that other comment, you might be not able to find out or actually do anything about all that.
Why you can’t get through to her, I will go with some quick guesses because there is no way for me to know.
This might be a trigger type situation. You might be giving her attention that she doesn’t get at home and it infuriates her to the core, or on the other hand, you can be reminding her of one of her parents in your approach or something like that — you won’t get there now or anytime soon.
This might be a “spotlight” problem, this situation from her perspective might feel like some interrogation, those situations can quickly turn the fight / flight / freeze response.
You might be, in her eyes, the enemy, cool kids are too cool to interact with teachers, right? Or maybe you are not cool enough for her to bother even listening to you. Or maybe she just rejected you because you rejected that one thing about her and she feels threatened / unsafe / misunderstood.
…and so on, every minute I can come up with another reason but they all mean nothing, just random, empty guesses. There are plenty of games that we play with each other to avoid the communication.
It is really great that you are showing and expressing your boundaries as a teacher, what you accept and like, and what is not tolerated in your classroom, that you try talking and connecting… the tricky part is, this classroom is mostly (besides some lucky exceptions) filled with minds not yet fully aware of what boundary, rule, differences, understanding, decision making, consequences or respect (and so on) even means.
Again, no solutions or any advice, just a story time if you feel like reading it.
One of the coolest teachers I ever knew was helping teens that were stealing or selling drugs, mostly because of drug or alcohol abuse at home, pretty often violence. He helped with returning stolen items, helped repairing them if they got somehow damaged and above all that, with overcoming the shame of admitting guilt or saying sorry; sometimes even with some part-time job seeking or legal issues. But he had all the means and skill to do it and many, many, many years of experience. I don’t know how or why he started doing all that but at the time I’ve met him, he already was a well known solution for many people and “if you fucked up bad, go talk to that guy, he will help you sort that out” was a thing people kept saying about him in their own circles. From what he told me, he got a lot of help in his life and he just repays his debt. Plus he had some crazy captivating stories to tell.
He was always in his classroom talking with someone, reading a book or doing something on his computer. But he just was there and if anyone needed him, he was there.
Thank you for this really extensive comment!!
As for the term POC, I understand how unuseful it is in this situation, so let me clarify: We have a Roma/Romani minority, especially in the part of the country where I live, which causes lots of tension and unfortunately, normalised racism.
I am very young (one time I was stopped on my way to the car and asked where I was going during school time) so I don’t feel like I have authority or that anyone looks up to me, for now at least. Instead, I try to be open with them and make them feel like they can come talk to me about anything, but as I already mentioned, I don’t spend much time with this group of kids and spend only two days in the school myself.
I will definitely think about what options I have here because my ultimate goal is to educate her, and everyone else.