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Between 2020-21 and 2024-25, there were more than 55,000 suspensions linked to racist abuse at English schools. James O'Brien hears from the families who have experienced the abuse firsthand. 0:35 | Sweetie in Warwick describes a shocking incident at her daughter's school. 6:06 | Caller Ali reacts to a seven-year-old saying “I don’t like Muslims.” 10:41 | Caller Lynn in Sutton says her granddaughter was discriminated against for having brown skin at the age of six. Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #jamesobrien #uknews #LBC #racism #abuse #ukpolitics LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
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0:00
We're looking at 70,000 English children being suspended from school over racist, homophobic and disabilist abuse
0:06
And of course the surge in racism in this country has been caused in large part by politicians like Honest Bob Jenrick
0:12
who instead of disparaging the police, writes Jay, should perhaps be taking a long hard look in the mirror
0:19
Chicken and egg, I suppose. But a key question today is what you do when your child comes home and tells you that they've been on the receiving end of
0:27
racist, homophobic or disabilist abuse. Sweetie is in Warwick. Sweetie, what would you like to say
0:35
The school that my daughter attends at, she's in year 10. I don't feel that they knew
0:40
how to deal with it when the first incident happened a couple of months ago. The girl was walking around
0:46
with one of the teachers, yet my daughter had been put in isolation for retaliating
0:50
My daughter is Jamaican Indian. Beautiful girl. And recently She's had a bottle of lute they've poured all over her
0:59
She's likened to Mark Henry, who is a black bodybuilder, although she doesn't look anything like him
1:05
And she was called the N-word. I've had to dump what you just said
1:11
because the words are very much policed by the broadcasting regulators. And there is an argument for context
1:19
People won't need much help guessing what words you used. Well, I'll tell them you used the N-word
1:24
I could probably mount a defence of context if I'd known it was coming
1:29
And I feel bad that I had to remove the words that you just said from the programme
1:35
But the rules are the rules. So your daughter was called the N-word and the B-word at the same time by a classmate at her school
1:42
And your daughter is about 15 years old. And this happened about two months ago
1:46
Is that right? Yes. And what was sad, she said at the time, she was actually stood there like
1:50
is this actually happening again? because our friends, she suffered racism anyway from the Indian side
1:56
because they're not meant to mix with blacks, you know? And that's the way it is
2:00
Now, so she's a strong person, but our friends are 99.9% white
2:05
and we can't go down this road. I actually classify my white friends as my family
2:12
The school, she's addressed the Board of Governors. She wrote a statement saying a white Board of Governors
2:18
they can sympathise, but they really can't know what it feels like
2:22
to look in a mirror and be made to hate your skin. Now, I can't go down those roads
2:28
You know, I've had to strengthen her, make her know that she's beautiful. I knew she'd go through the phase of putting on heavy makeup again
2:34
but the school are also doing assemblies on it as well. That's to change her colour, the heavy makeup
2:42
I suppose it's like when women get insecure, we do suffer from insecurities
2:46
It's rubbing off on men as well now, but you've made the child feel ugly. Now, what they've done in her
2:52
They've lit another fire in her. She's had her head down since she's come home on Friday
2:56
She's got mock exams. My mum has always taught us that we have to work twice as hard
3:01
which is quite sad. I'm 45. I have never suffered any form of bullying like this
3:07
But since lockdown and the flag's flying, it is out there in the schools
3:12
I feel sorry for the teachers. It's hard for them to deal with. And the only way is to re-educate
3:18
Of course it is. And I'm just going to take you back if I can. because you mentioned it being a relatively recent..
3:25
It's been building up for about seven, eight months, possibly as long as a year
3:30
but she felt that she doesn't want to report it. She doesn't want to come across as a victim either
3:35
Oh, I'm sorry. Do the school know that those two words were used against her
3:41
Yes, they do. And what did they do about that? Her form tutor stood behind her
3:46
and she actually questioned whether this other child should be at the school because he doesn't turn up to study, he truants a lot
3:52
Now he been taken out of the school and allowed to attend just his GCSE exams and he not allowed to the school prom Is that as a consequence of what he said to your daughter Yes yes So this would be one of the 70 cases then
4:07
It's a classic example. Yes, my child, I mean, she's applied to become head girl, you know
4:12
Yes, the school she's at is a predominantly white school. I've been told by my son's football dad that it's a farming area
4:19
I don't care about that. We farm in India. We could compare notes. you know, that's where putting these barriers up
4:26
is really, really sad because these children, I myself having mixed race children now wonder
4:31
what sort of world am I leaving them in have I left them with a mixed identity
4:35
you've got a lot going on and it's hard for me to sort of
4:39
and you know with teenagers regarding self harm I have to take the week off, I want to watch my child
4:43
I don't want to see cuts in her arms and stuff, it's happening too much what do you say to her
4:49
about specifically the racial abuse that she has received how do you what do you say to her about they're jealous they're jealous
4:57
everybody i mean women are generally like that they all i used to be really really obese or you
5:01
want to be slim but i'm not going to attack the slim ones for it you have to work on yourself now
5:06
you can't work on your skin color i'm not having her like we've got family that bleach their skin
5:11
i'm not having her do that because it looks awful be proud of your skin does it work does she does
5:17
It does work. I put it into her. And then I play her reggae music like Tara Swiley, Beres Hammond
5:24
She makes the most of it. And I am taking her to Jamaica this year. To be proud of her heritage
5:30
She is. To be proud. And I'm proud to be even British Indian
5:34
I said, my mum runs pubs in Warwick. And I stand there and I say to them, you know, we're all friends
5:39
We share things together. You know, you got to learn our courage. And I knew what a poached egg was
5:43
Yeah, I'm born here. but yes the government and everything they do now is making times hard for people um it doesn't
5:50
help in warwick we've got hotel housing asylum seekers so a lot of people have got their arms
5:55
up in the air but they need to do their history we went to those countries we were not told as a
6:00
general civilian what was going on and we we acquired resources it should have been about fair
6:05
trade i've got um a seven-year-old um that was that's now in year two she's going to school
6:11
and about a month ago we had an incident that took place in school
6:16
She was in school, she was in RE lesson and they were learning about different religions
6:21
So a bit of background, we're Muslims, so obviously we're born and raised in the UK, Muslim sort of family
6:26
And there was a child that was sitting next to her that sort of looked at her and then said
6:32
oh, I don't like Islam. And then she was really surprised and she was like
6:36
oh, but I'm Muslim. And then she said, oh, yeah. First she said, I don't like Muslims
6:40
and when my child said, oh, you know, I'm Muslim, she's like, oh, I don't like Islam
6:45
And she was really confused and didn't know what to do, so obviously she didn't report nothing at the time for the teacher
6:49
She just came home really confused and then she spoke to us. Can I ask what she said? Can you remember what words she used to articulate what had happened to her
6:57
So she came home and then she said, well, mum, so obviously Will was having dinner at the time. Yeah
7:02
And she said, and she just looked, we can tell when something's wrong with her, she sort of has a, she's really a lively and happy and mischievous child
7:10
and this time she was just sitting there a little bit quiet. I said, is everything all right
7:14
And then she said, she goes, oh no, she goes, something happened at school today
7:18
I said, what happened? She goes, oh, one of my, she said her name
7:24
and she said something horrible to me. I said, what did she say
7:29
And she said, oh, she said she didn't like Muslims when we were learning about Islamic school
7:33
Just stop there. What did you feel at that point, at that moment? to be fair it was a it was it was disheartening um disappointing sad because the area that i grew
7:45
up in is sort of you know there has been a history of sort of racism within the area
7:49
unfortunately when i was younger um i suffered quite a bit myself yeah um did you think did you think things had got better or did things get better for a while I think there was a moment a period of time when things had got a lot better
8:02
You know, it was, you know, these sort of comments, things wasn't happening
8:05
and I genuinely thought we'd sort of turned a corner and we were going towards a society
8:09
that was going to be respectful of everybody, that's going to be tolerant and understanding. We were getting there, weren't we
8:14
But these things are always just in abeyance, I think I understand now. They're always just waiting to crawl back out of the darkness
8:20
aren't they when an opportunity presents itself so what did you say who who who led the conversation
8:25
now you or your wife who did you do it it was mainly me because um my wife's from um a different
8:30
part of london so she grew up in a different part of london so she was she's been in a very diverse
8:34
area so she's not really had that experience in her life oh down with diversity eh go on what did
8:41
you say to her what did you say to your girl um so i mean the only thing i could do was i sort of
8:45
sat down i said to her look you know don't be disheartened don't be upset sometimes people don't
8:49
really understand. They don't really know what they're saying and things do happen. You've just got to sort of, obviously, make sure
8:55
things do happen. You always let mum and daddy know. You always tell your teachers. Obviously, she hadn't
8:59
reported anything to her teacher at the time because she didn't know. She didn't understand what happened because
9:03
it was the first time it's ever happened to her. She's seven years old. Did you tell the school
9:10
We did, yes. My wife went in the next day, spoke to the school
9:15
teacher. She was absolutely appalled. Really apologetic. trying to be really supportive
9:21
They then did sort of tell the lead teacher who was sort of in charge of this type of behaviour
9:28
And for a week, everything just went quiet, nothing happened, we didn't hear anything back. So my wife sort of had to chase it back with her class teacher again
9:34
saying, hey, look, just let you know we've not heard anything, we don't know what's happened. And then she was like, oh, my God, I left it to her
9:40
thinking she would have dealt with it. I'm like, we've not heard anything. So then the teacher goes, look, let me chase it up
9:45
So she's had to then chase it up, and then they've had to sort of, eventually they got around to giving us a call again
9:49
and just updating us in the situation. Okay. I mean, the really heartbreaking thing here
9:54
is that that class is designed to diffuse precisely the ignorance that was displayed
9:59
by your little girl's classmate, isn't it? And yet, one imagines that
10:04
working on the, I think, almost irresistible presumption that she's picked up this attitude at home
10:09
one imagines that her parents would be precisely the sort of people to object to their daughter
10:13
being taught about Islam. Yeah, I mean, look, it's obviously... You can't win, can you
10:18
You can't, you can't. And it's both sad and upsetting because the thought that went into my head is
10:24
as a seven-year-old, there should be no way where you're seven and you're thinking
10:30
I don't like a religion, a people, a race, whatever it might be. You just don't have that information
10:36
How are you making these lines? Nobody's born like that, are they? Absolutely not
10:40
I picked up the phone because I've got a six-year-old granddaughter who went to school
10:47
and one of her classmates turned around and said she wasn't going to play with her because she had brown skin
10:54
At six? At six. How did you find out? She told her mum first, did she and her mum told you
11:03
Yes, her mum got on the phone to me. She was absolutely mortified that at that age..
11:10
Well, at any age, but it just feels harsher, doesn't it? It's harder at six years old
11:15
Six years old, yeah. I was absolutely gutted to think that another child could say that at that age
11:23
What happened? So what happened was my daughter got in contact with the school
11:31
The school then pulled the parents in. But it took a while
11:35
It wasn't sort of like the next day. It took about a week to organise a meeting
11:40
They had a talk with parents and they spoke to the child
11:44
because the feeling was where did the child get this sort of ideas from and language from to talk to another child in a school like it And was Mum happy with how they dealt with it
12:02
As happy as she could be. How they dealt with it, not what happened
12:06
I mean, she felt that her concerns had been properly addressed. Yes, she did
12:12
That's good. But she said you shouldn't have to go down to the school
12:17
and be like this for a six-year-old. I mean, my daughter is mixed race and my granddaughter is mixed race
12:25
And when I had to look after my granddaughter when she went to the meeting, she asked me, Nan, she said, why did she say it
12:36
And I just had to turn around and say to her, the first thing that came into my head is because you're special
12:42
And people sometimes can't understand special people. So you've got to be patient with them
12:47
they get a bit jealous. That's very generous of you, isn't it
12:51
I mean, because your top priority is helping her while simultaneously wanting her to feel less pain
12:57
and, as I said to Ali, not wanting to tell her that she shouldn't be hurt by it
13:02
because it is just hurtful. It's a horrible thing. It's the worst thing you can say to a six-year-old
13:07
Yeah, you could see it in her face. You could see her mind thinking it over
13:14
and thinking, why was it said to me? why, you know, it was that question why
13:20
First time it happens must be absolutely, I mean for everybody involved
13:25
the very first time it happens must be like something shattering. Yes, yes
13:31
Never knew it existed until that moment, your granddaughter probably, never knew that racism even was a thing
13:36
never knew that her skin colour was an issue and then suddenly it is and it will be for the rest of her life
13:42
She even questioned it with me because I'm white. She said, but you're a different colour from me
13:49
So it really had a profound effect on her. Well, thank God she's got so much love in her life, Lynn
13:57
from you and everybody else, because without that, these things become even bigger problems
14:02
and even harder to deal with. I'm sorry. I don't know why
14:06
I mean, both of those stories, probably because six and seven, they're the ages that just seem, you know, I don't know
14:13
wouldn't be better in any way if they were 15, but it's just the idea of
14:18
I think it's the idea of innocence being taken away, isn't it
14:22
I don't like Muslims. I don't want to play with a brown person
14:27
It's the innocence that's been taken away there by another child who's had their innocence taken away
14:32
actually, by their parents. Yes, because I think, you know, nowadays we've got, like you say
14:39
so much media, TV going on that the kids, we're unaware that the kids are
14:46
when they're young, soaking it up. The message they're getting is that it's okay
14:50
You know, you've got a woman in Parliament who says she doesn't like seeing brown faces and black faces on the television
14:55
Sarah Pochin is her name. So why on earth would someone think that there was anything wrong
14:59
with telling a little girl with a brown face in their classroom that she didn't want to play with her
15:04
I don't like playing with people with brown faces, says a six-year-old girl. I don't like seeing brown faces on the television
15:10
says an actual Member of Parliament. and look at who's queuing up to defend these people
15:14
It's not just the absolute far right. It's an awful lot of people who've spent years pretending not to be
15:22
queuing up to defend them. Honest Bob Jenrick and the rest of them, absolutely extraordinary the speed with which this is happening
15:28
and if you don't believe what I'm saying about the adults, have a look at what the children are doing
15:32
70,000 of them suspended for racist abuse. Well, 60-odd, I think, for racist abuse
15:38
but horrible numbers also for disabledists Disablist and homophobic Because you never get one without the other
15:44
You don't need to be Martin Niemöller To know that they come for one group first
15:49
And then when that's over and done with They come for another group
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