Dear Ms Understanding,
My 12-year-old daughter has a white mum (me) and an afro-Indigenous dad. At home, we actively discuss racism, sexism and colonialism and are openly political.
At school, my daughter has started clashing with teachers over issues of racism. For example, refusing to do assigned tasks when she thinks the content or basis of the work is racist and telling teachers that the work is racist. Some of this is overt (kids calling each other the “n word” which the school acts on quickly). But some is much more subtle (using texts that refer to “savages”; doing activities that assume students are white and asking to imagine “being in the shoes of x” for day). She is often right and has a more nuanced understanding of racism than many of her teachers.
Several teachers are unhappy with her outspokenness, don’t like being called out and are treating her as a troublemaker. She is experiencing anxiety because of it and we have been asked to go and speak to the principal.
How do we support her to have a positive relationship with her teachers without quashing or silencing her? And without inadvertently condoning the racism. And for myself, a white parent without lived experiences of racism, how do I specifically ensure I’m advocating for school to be a safe place for her?
Dear Mum,
Firstly, let me say congratulations for raising an engaged and politically aware young person. The critical thinking and speaking skills she is putting into action will stand her in good stead in the long term. So, while it may seem hard right now, remember that she will continue to confront these issues for many years to come.
You’ve got to help her frame what is happening in ways that support her excellent instincts. Help her see that she has every right to challenge her teachers and point out racism, but ultimately if she wants to change the broader system, she is going to need a lot of help.
Her efforts are powerful and important and you should continue to tell her that you are proud of her. So, one part of your job – but only one part – is to fully back her up and to make sure that the school knows they cannot get away with scapegoating her.
The greater part of your job is to help her think more broadly about the best way to have a sustained impact. As you say you are openly political in your home, this is an important moment to help your daughter to take her efforts to the next level and to remind her of the long history of marching, protesting and defiance that have led to social change.
Remind her of Frederick Douglass, a man who defied slavers and became one of the most powerful US abolitionists of the nineteenth century. In one of my favourite speeches, Douglass said: “Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.” Douglass then went on to say, “struggle concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will.”
Remind your daughter of women like Shirleen Cauley Smith, a Wirajuri woman and tireless campaigner who contributed to the founding of the Aboriginal Legal Service, Medical Service, Housing Company, the Tent embassy and the Aboriginal Children’s Service.
Remind her of Lilian Ngoyi, a Black South African trade unionist who led 20,000 women in a march against the apartheid regime in 1956.
You get the point. Your daughter can’t and should not attempt to take the school on by herself. It is popular these days to sacrifice activism on the altar of self care, but to be honest, the most compelling reason your child should not do this alone has nothing to do with pampering herself and has everything to do with strategy and tactics. She will be far more effective when she works in concert with others, than if she goes it alone.
So, it’s time to kick into gear, Mum. So often, we try to manage our kids, rather than meeting them where they are. Affirm her activism, and let her know she might get into what civil rights leader John Lewis called, “good trouble,” but she is already making you proud. Knowing you’ve got her back fully, should address her anxiety.
Then, sit down and help her to think about tackling the problems she is seeing at school. Together, figure out whether there are like-minded kids at her school. Is there a social justice club? Can she start one? Can you help her to map out existing nodes of organising where you live? Can she start a petition to force the education department to change the curriculum? Can she and some of her friends and comrades write an op-ed for the local paper or get a local reporter to cover the story?
For many reasons, young people today often feel like speaking out is the be-all and end-all of activism. And yet of course, we know that speaking out takes courage, but it is only one step in the direction of protest. Addressing the big structural problems of institutional racism is going to take tenacity, bridge-building, dialogue, defiance, and the capacity to be flexible. It’s going to test and shape her growing skills, and deepen her connection to other people. It’s an exciting journey, no matter where it ends up.
She might decide to drop it after a few months, or she may become a lifelong campaigner. The important thing is that she knows you are on her side.
You and her father will have to fight a few battles in the principal’s office, but your greater role is to help her to change the terms of the fight so that she isn’t banging her head against a wall. Instead, you have to help her to look up and out, to move beyond that particular school, and to enlist the support of others, to help her to understand more fully, what activism entails.
Good luck, you have been entrusted with a wonderful and frightening task. I can think of no greater honour than to help a young person to understand that if they want the ocean, as Douglass says, they must first learn to contend with the roar of its many waters.
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Sisonke Msimang is a Guardian Australia columnist. She is the author of Always Another Country: A Memoir of Exile and Home (2017) and The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela (2018)
