Teachers, Parents Report Wave of Racist Abuse Towards Non-White Kids at Schools This Week

ByElizabeth Licata

(Via Giphy)

Donald Trump is President-elect of the United States. That fact has devastated and terrified a lot of people, but it’s also made a lot of people very happy. Now, some of those happy people are all over Facebook and Twitter insisting that Trump has no actual intention of trying to overturn equal marriage*, ban abortion*, ban Muslims from entering the country, or put Muslim-Americans on a registry, and that he really just intends to save America by cutting taxes for corporations, getting rid of the Affordable Care Act, and growing the military. He didn’t mean any of the racist stuff, and the racist platform on which he ran was just a businessman’s clever route to victory by pandering to the rubes with their racism and religion.

Well, it looks like it’s Christmas for racists out there today, as some of those actual racists have been throwing off the shackles of propriety, kindness, and social disapproval and celebrating their candidate’s victory with an outlandish performance of racism and bigotry. CNN has been rounding up reports of racist attacks and incidents that have reportedly been happening since news of Trump’s victory. Even if Trump doesn’t plan on actually banning Muslims or fighting equal marriage, it sure looks like some of his supporters saw the campaign he ran and his victory as permission to just go out and celebrate by harassing people as much as they want.

In Durham, North Carolina, someone on Wednesday wrote “Black Lives Don’t Matter and Neither Does Your Votes.” (That was written next to a Durham Soul Food restaurant called JC’s Kitchen.)

As if the reports of racial abuse of and by adults weren’t terrible enough, several recent incidents of racist abuse in schools have been perpetrated by children. Kids repeat what they hear at home, and a disturbing number of school children have been shouting racial slurs and things like “build a wall!” at other children. Those kids might just be repeating what they hear at home, but how on Earth are their non-white, Muslim, and LGBT classmates supposed to feel safe at school when the other kids are doing this to them?

Daily News columnist Shaun King writes that one high school principal confirmed that several white students at her school were actually yelling the N-word and “Heil Hitler” at their classmates.

In DeWitt, Michigan, junior high students linked arms and turned themselves into a “wall” to prevent Latino kids from getting to class. Junior high students!

DeWitt school officials confirmed to the Lansing Journal that three such incidents had happened at the junior high on November 9.

A Florida high school found “Colored” and “Whites Only” signs pasted above two water fountains in a hallway.

CNN has video of middle school kids chanting “Build a wall!” in their lunchroom.

Children doing this sort of thing must have parents and caregivers who perpetuate these kind of ideas, even if they only do it behind closed doors. This is truly awful, especially for the victims of this abuse, who were just trying to go to school.

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