Minority Students at Grade Schools

Today during casual conversations my 9 year old son and his best friend told me this event. Two weeks ago another friend (white, let’s call him Fred) made a rap song and shared with those boys in his  small circle (2 out of 5 are minorities but no blacks). The song went like this: “black people suck, they suck less than a buck, they suck, suck, suck….” The rap shocked those boys and they scolded Fred for racism and made him stop. This incident touched a sensitive nerve of mine, so that I probed my son and his friend for more intelligence. I know Fred pretty well. He is nice to his friends and respectful to adults. Fred has some anger issues so that he took out from certain kids including his younger brother. In the same week the only black boy at 3rd grade was suspended for two weeks as a result of repeated kicking of another  boy on his private part. Therefore Fred made the rap to bash the blacks in general. Apparently he made himself a fool and received scolding from his friends.

I immediately thought of the Peter Liang case. The black boy made a mistake and had been penalized with suspension. He should not be further penalized by receiving the outrageous rap. The black boy was spared from undue penalty by his friends which were properly taught by the school system. The difference in Liang’s case is he was not as lucky due to a corrupt system, the NYC government. The different treatments the black boy and Liang received amplify the importance of good systems. Bad systems make much harder to prevent damages to the societies and the people in them. Many schools are good but not flawless and people are not perfect. We may all be Fred or victimized by Fred once in a while. In those less than desirable situations minorities are usually more vulnerable. We all want our kids to have fun and prosper at school. I summarized the following ideas for young minority students and their parents to consider.

1. Assimilation is a powerful tool. Usually kids don’t have English issues. They may need to become culturally closer to the mainstream. Team sports or other group  activities  are effective means to help them blend into the environments different from their families. Kids are usually keen on what they need to do to be included. Immigrant parents lack of school experience at USA may need to pay extra attention to their kids behaviors and requests. Listen to your kids.
2. Make efforts to influence the systems.  Decent US schools have high standards of fair play rules and little tolerance on bully.  At school kids need to learn and practice how to raise attention and work with the authorities such as the teachers to seek protection or fairness.
3. Create alliances with other minority students.  Recognize other Chinese, Indians or blacks  can be your allies on certain issues.  If seeing unfairness to other minorities, you should help them. That is good for you as well.  My son’s grade there are less than 10% non-white students. I asked him to try to become acquainted with those minority students. At times they may need to unite for larger impact.
4. Make friends in general.  Friends make each other happy and help each other out. The fact you have friends shields you from being picked on by bullies.
5. Know your status as a minority,.  Know your strengths and weaknesses, and find your unique paths to your goals. Not every Chinese kids like to stay quiet and like only math and science.  The Chinese kids are just as diverse as other races.
Lastly I think we should teach our young kids how to live happy and fulfilling lives. Everybody just gets to live once, and this is one of the few things that are absolutely fair regardless of race, gender or the family you are born into.

《Minority Students at Grade Schools》上的3个想法

  1. Below is my college roommate Jackie’s response:

    Very good article. Overall, I think race, class, social status , even gender, are tags society mark for the adults or civilians. For someone as grade students whose age between kids and adolescents, things are not stereotyped and tagged by labels yet, other things like learning, playing and making friends weigh way more than these general labels, and during the process they create their own impressions and meaningful human nature labels like bravery, honesty,responsibilities, sharpness , quickness, strength, more meaningful and use lifelong characteristics that differ among all people and classify them that they can use for their whole lives.

    I add: children are a lot easier to fit in than adults due to the reasons Jackie mentioned. Parents please help them.

  2. From my friend Jackie Xue:

    Very good article. Overall, I think race, class, social status , even gender, are tags society mark for the adults or civilians. For someone as grade students whose age between kids and adolescents, things are not stereotyped and tagged by labels yet, other things like learning, playing and making friends weigh way more than these general labels, and during the process they create their own impressions and meaningful human nature labels like bravery, honesty,responsibilities, sharpness , quickness, strength, more meaningful and use lifelong characteristics that differ among all people and classify them that they can use for their whole lives.

  3. Sophia, very interesting piece. With my children still so little I have not had to face these issues. But I want to raise my son so that when he enters grade school he can, like your son, be sensitive enough to recognize racism on the spot and be strong enough to speak out against it, no matter which minority group it is directed towards. Yes, we need to teach our children to know to seek help from teachers if a situation makes them uncomfortable.

    When I was your son’s age I spent 3 years in an elementary school in Germany, where I was not only the only Asian kid, but also the only non-German kid. Of course, I faced incidents of bullying, I don’t want to call it racism because I don’t think those kids really knew what race meant. But kids like to pick on other kids who are different, in any way. What I remember most vividly now is that I also had German friends who helped me and stood up for me when I didn’t know the language. When I went home I didn’t want to tell my parents, they only found out by chance, and I felt embarrassed when they showed up in my class to talk to the teacher in front of all the kids. But after that, the “bad” kids who bullied me became very nice to me. And I ended up loving that school. What this incident taught me is that we really need to speak up if something bad happens. As a system, the German schools, like the American schools, want to be fair and inclusive. But kids are often embarrassed or afraid to tell their parents when something bad happens, and they try to bury it themselves. This is not healthy. As parents we need to be aware and make sure our kids feel comfortable telling us things.

    I still don’t know how I feel about assimilation. I grew up here and yet don’t feel like I have really assimilated. In fact, I feel that the process of finding my own comfort zone outside of mainstream culture has made me stronger. I guess I got used to not fitting in, and that leads to a sense of freedom. I have ABC friends who fall all across the assimilation spectrum, and I feel that as long as you are strong and can stand up for yourself, you will be fine.

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