Over the past couple of weeks, the #BlackLivesMatter movement has roused voices of many young and old, mainly black, South Africans who have experienced horrible racial, sexist and xenophobic discrimination experienced in schools across the country. Schools can be breeding grounds of racism, sexism and xenophobia. This, of course, is not new. The Bantu Education system, created by the Apartheid government to advance racism and further the oppression of black people, was undeniably flawed and has influenced the cultures surrounding schools today. 

If we are to say that racism, sexism and xenophobia are taught then we can, in the same breath, demand that Anti-Racism, Anti-Sexism and Anti-Xenophobia be institutionalized vigorously across all schools in South Africa. This means that the structures and cultures are to be questioned, transformed and maintained in these schools continuously. There should be a demand for curriculum biases to be interrogated and remodeled for inclusivity and progression. Revolution is ever evolving, our leadership must meticulously invest and be held accountable in the learning and unlearning of these systems, cultures and their repercussions. 

Schools police Black students, specifically in the form of ‘codes of conduct’ which are anti-Black through hair, rules etc. In 2016, the Pretoria Girls High pupil’s protest highlighted these forms of anti-blackness. The school forced pupils to chemically straighten their hair and not have Afros as they were deemed “untidy”. Some political parties expressed it as the act “to directly suppress blackness in its aesthetics and culture.” 

It is also important to mention how schools are breeding grounds for toxic masculinity which go hand in hand with racism, sexism and xenophobia. In 2020, Enoch Mpianzi, a 13-year-old Parktown Boys High school learner drowned at a Grade 8 orientation camp. Six educators and principal Malcolm Williams were in breach of the school’s safety guidelines. The negligence around black bodies, the notion of “boys will be boys” is an endangerment to maleness, non-binary, femaleness and stems from the idea that black bodies, black people are invincible - do not feel pain, do not need care/attention and do not need protection. We must acknowledge how unconscious biases and prejudiced beliefs led to such negligence that resulted in the life of a black boy, lost. 

In the psychological field, mental status examinations (MSE) are means of describing a patient's current state of mind, under the domains of appearance, attitude, behavior, speech, mood and affect, thought process, thought content, perception, cognition (including orientation, memory and concentration), insight and judgement. Multidisciplinary MSE, such as nursing assessments, include risk assessments (risk of suicide, aggression, running away from hospital, self-harm, sexual safety in hospital and medication compliance) are performed as standard and with vigor, obtaining personal and health background information from the patients being admitted and their carers. In our aims to create environments of safety, inclusion, healing and progression… racist, sexist and xenophobic risk assessments would a form of suggested psychological assessments to be inclusively developed, for the sake of evaluating the fitness of people in posing leadership positions as well as prospects applying for those positions. 

Our history has taught that it is imperative for our decisions, to know whether a person or conglomerate are fit to lead and take care of varying groups of people, through assessment of their conscious and unconscious biases as well as their overall mental health. Such a risk assessment can radically transform school systems and their leadership. It is not enough to take people at face value or theoretical excellence. 

Many a violences are perpetuated through enabling our biases to appoint a leadership, without thorough and inclusive examination, that is not fit to understand our varying existences. It is important for leadership to be able to identify the varying degrees and forms of violence, so to facilitate an environment of safety and progression, especially for disadvantaged groups. 

In addition, we must acknowledge the trauma of the violence experienced by South Africans, inflicted, perpetuated and learnt within education systems across the country. We must create space for ongoing healing by normalizing forms of therapy that are aware, sensitized, inclusive and evolving.  

We cannot be complacent, or stagnant in our fight. This transformation demands we remain adaptable and humble as we continue to unlearn. 

https://tiny.cc/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES