School puts racism, homophobia on hold

BISHOPS Diocesan College says it will wait until “next term” after they break for holiday to start a process to deal with concerns of racism and homophobia raised by pupils and parents at the school.

Parents of pupils at Bishops’ senior and junior schools yesterday spoke out about their own experiences of discrimination at the institution and the trauma they and their children faced as a result.

Bishops’ pupils had last week held a protest outside the school demanding, through a memorandum, an end to alleged racism and homophobia there.

They hoisted a rainbow Pride flag alongside a #BlackLivesMatter flag.

In response to the parents’ stories yesterday, principal Guy Pearson said: “The senior pupil leadership and the executive met on Monday and agreed that we could only start the process next term because we go on holiday tomorrow.

“Until then, we agreed that we would not comment in the press because it would be premature and could influence the process.”

The process would be determined by incoming principal Tony Reeler and the Bishops Council, because Pearson retires today.

Reeler is outgoing Pretoria Boys’ High School principal, which last week made headlines after a video emerged on social media showing some of its pupils making racist statements.

The school’s governing body has since launched an investigation.

Yesterday, a Bishops parent said she believed the discrimination had affected her son’s self-worth and, ultimately, his academic performance at school.

“This sense of invalidity and lack of trust in his superiors eventually led to my son giving up hope and not reporting the perpetrators, an unfair burden for a teenager to carry,” she said.

The parent said there were incidences of teachers constantly calling her son by the name of another brown child or being accused of stealing along with the only other boy of colour in class.

“White parents are more involved in the school. This is not because parents of colour don’t want to be engaged in the school but the structures that are in place make it uncomfortable for parents of colour to get involved,” she said.

“There is a definite sense of exclusion and we are very aware that certain parents are earmarked for key roles. This is determined by the social circles the parents move in, affluence or how wide these parents will open their purses.”

She said she had sent her son to one of South Africa’s top private schools where she thought his best interests and safety would be guaranteed.

“Bishops has a habit of sweeping contentious issues under the rug or blatantly ignoring them. They have done a deep disservice to people of colour by turning a blind eye and ignoring institutionalised racism,” the parent said.

“In Grade 7, I had blown out my

son’s hair to make it more manageable. By blowing the hair out, it created the perception that my son’s hair was in the structure of a mini-afro,” another parent recounted. “I then went to go and see (the headmaster at the time) regarding my son’s hair. My son’s hair was actually neater in its current blown-out form than it was in the previous coarse and coiled-up form.

“I made this statement in accordance with the hair policy at the time, which stated that … Hair was to be kept short enough so as to touch the eyebrows, ears and collar, which my son’s hair did not do.”

She said she felt that the school was more ready to ask her son to get his hair cut than they were to amend the school rules to better accommodate African hair.

“I then, acknowledging that

I was not going to get through

(to the principal), took my son to get his hair cut. This was painful considering I felt I hadn’t been given a solid reason as to why my son’s hair had to be cut. When my son went back to school, he was met with a multitude of concealed comments from the teachers which included: ‘You look much more presentable now’, or ‘You look like a Bishops’ boy now’.

“I found myself asking whether the school and its teachers were possibly threatened by my son’s hair… having an ‘afro’ is synonymous world-wide with black consciousness,” the parent said.