How Africa News
A parent has removed her kid from Pepper Tree Elementary School in California after a former classmate brought her drawings with racist comments. The mother of the Black student told KTLA that she decided to withdraw her daughter from school because the Upland Unified School District did not do enough to address the ongoing harassment that pupils at the school faced.
Parents of elementary school pupils are also seeking answers after becoming aware of the discriminatory drawings. One of the drawings was phrased, “You’re my favorite monkey.” A different one was also phrased, “To my favorite cotton picker.”
Parents with children enrolled at the school have stated that kids had spoken racist comments to their daughters on several occasions. “They said that they were going to give her (a drawing) that specifically said, ‘You’re my favorite slave,’ and they were going to show her as a slave hanging from a tree,” Maylana Douglas said.
The parents also mentioned an incident in which a group of girls allegedly told their daughter that they were going to give her back rubs and massages to commemorate Black History Month. “It’s your month, you’re entitled to back rubs,” Rome Douglas said in reference to what the girls told their daughter. “And apparently, someone told her, well, maybe only half the month because you’re only half Black.”
This latest incident adds to previous incidents in which Upland students have been targets of racism, according to KTLA. Last year, a teacher at a different school in the same district was placed on administrative leave for uttering anti-Asian remarks. The incident occurred during the Lunar New Year celebrations at the school.
In a letter to parents, Pepper Tree Elementary’s principal addressed the racist artwork. But this was two weeks after the occurrence. A day after the letter was sent, district officials posted a video on YouTube.
“I want to make it perfectly clear that we have a strict zero tolerance policy on any type of hate speech, harassment,” Sherman Garnett, who is the Upland USD Board President, said in the video.
But the school’s PTA president, Robin Allen, said she’s “hoping that the district does not brush this under the rug as they’ve brushed issues under the rug in the past.”
The school did not disclose if the student who made the drawings will face disciplinary action. It cited privacy laws.
