A survey by the Queensland African Coalition Council has found racism is commonplace in public and private schools. All the 150 students who participated in the survey had experience racism at an educational institution. A Brisbane mother is tackling the issue head on and calling for racism to become and offence leading to expulsion.
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00:00Chido was horrified when her 8-year-old daughter explained she'd been racially targeted at
00:07school several times.
00:09My heart dropped really.
00:11I wasn't expecting something like that to happen so soon.
00:14Floored by the revelation, the Brisbane mother made a plea to her parent group chat.
00:20Please talk to your children.
00:21My child can't change her skin colour.
00:24That's how she's born.
00:25Chido also met with the principal at the school in Brisbane's west, who she says downplayed
00:30the severity of the racist incidents.
00:33Why is my daughter being asked to continue as normal with a person who's constantly targeting
00:39her for something she can do nothing about?
00:41Recently, the Queensland African Coalition Council surveyed 150 African youth from both
00:46private and public schools and found 100% of them had been racially abused at school.
00:52A lot of young black kids are afraid to speak up and defend themselves when other people
00:58say the N-word.
00:59The teachers and the principal were the ones saying the N-word to them.
01:02So they just sit there and they think like, oh, if they can say it, I can say it too.
01:05School isn't enjoyable, but it's somewhere where they say you should have fun learning.
01:10But it's like when you wake up and you just don't want to go anymore, it's like...
01:14There was never a question in my mind that these kids actually experience racism, but
01:19it's just a matter of at what level and the degree of racism that they had to go through.
01:23The QACC's survey is part of a broader report which includes recommendations for tackling
01:29racism in schools.
01:31We need to make sure that they actually employ people from diverse backgrounds to support
01:37some of these kids during and after school.
01:40Frustrated she got little support from her daughter's school, Chita created a petition
01:45calling for racism to be grounds for expulsion.
01:48I would hate for my daughters in 20 years, 30 years time to be sitting down having an
01:52interview like this about race.
01:55She says she has hundreds of signatures already.
01:58Titenda Chibika, ABC News, Brisbane.