This was not only happening across gaming platforms, she soon learned, but in the playground of his state primary too. “It was heartbreaking,” Ms Folivi, a publicist, says.
Part of the rise is down to increased awareness among students and parents – but some headteachers have said they think the problem is getting worse, with pupils influenced by far right rhetoric on social media and the news. Some have said divisive political events like Brexit have led to people becoming more comfortable using incendiary language at home, which children then bring to the playground.
Campaigner Naomi Evans: ‘Most teachers have never experienced racism, and don’t know how to address it’Ms Folivi “was really disturbed” on learning what had happened to her son. The family was asked if they wanted to progress the case as a hate crime with the police, but decided to allow the school to handle it internally.
Within her family, who moved from London to Peterborough three years ago, this has sadly not proven a lone incident; her daughter has fended off similar slurs at her state secondary school, she says – issues that have cropped up since they left London. But from state to private, and across the UK, the problem is entrenched, one 16-year-old from London explains.
These are not isolated cases, he points out, but part of a wider culture that is seemingly overlooked time and again; he and a black friend have been told to hand over their sweets to another pupil “because we were slaves, and he would whip us, and we should be picking cotton, and we should call him ‘Master’”. Almost every day, “some form of the N-word is thrown around, they call me ‘monkey’, ‘watermelon-muncher,’” he says.
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Naomi Evans is a teacher and mother-of-two who co-founded the organisation Everyday Racism with her sister, Natalie, after a video of Natalie confronting two men hurling racial abuse at a ticket inspector went viral on Twitter (now X). Its purpose is to provide education and training on anti-racism in institutions from schools to workplaces.
In a survey from Not So Micro, a social action project addressing racial microaggressions and advocating for anti-racism training in teacher education, and the Centre for Mental Health, 76 per cent of teachers reported not knowing how to deal with questions over anti-racism when asked by students, while around 60 per cent said they didn’t know what a microaggression was. This leaves young people despairing, the charities say; when schools can’t appropriately tackle the issues on their turf, it affects the way pupils see going in at all, with knock-on effects to their behaviour, and their mental health.
In March, a coalition of organisations including Everyday Racism held a panel in Parliament, urging senior leaders to back their campaign to #TakeRacismSeriously. They believe that to effect change, strategies must be fourfold: making racial literacy training compulsory for teachers, instituting a clear policy for anti-racism within schools, ensuring that black history is a fundamental part of the curriculum, and providing mental health support for those affected by racism.
Ms Folivi agrees that “there’s a lot of talk around change, but very little happens thereafter. It’s usually a tick box exercise. Unfortunately, whenever there’s an attack on a black person, people are like, ‘Oh, we must do something,’ and there’s a lot more talk about diversity, equity and inclusion. Then it goes quiet again, and then it’s usually back to the status quo.”
Still, it’s a lot to expect anyone to take – let alone children – particularly when schools seem to be repeatedly making the same mistakes. A concerted effort is needed – from teachers, and parents of non-black children – Ms Folivi adds, to really ensure the future looks different for the next generation.
“There has to be generational change – families talking to their children about racism, making it clear that it’s not acceptable,” she urges. “That’s where real change will come.”
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