EDITORIAL: Confronting racism in our classrooms
It’s far too convenient to dismiss the racism storm at Windhoek Afrikaans Private School (WAP) and Deutsche Höhere Privatschule (DHPS) this week as a simple mistake by ignorant learners. Painting their faces black was not an innocent lapse in costume choice. Not when paired with the ethnic slur ‘kaffir’.
These were deliberate, targeted acts from students at some of Namibia’s most prestigious schools – the very places that educate the crème de la crème. And most likely from well-to-do families. Any suggestion that they didn’t understand that what they did was racism is disingenuous.
This incident did not occur in isolation. It emerged from environments meant to nurture Namibia’s brightest minds.
Racism is not a natural instinct. It is absorbed from homes, communities, and yes, schools.
No child wakes up deciding to hate, to demean, or to claim superiority over others based on skin tone.
As Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry reminded us in the song '7 Seconds': “When a child is born into this world, it has no concept of the tone of skin it's living in.”
Children notice skin only after the world teaches them to.
When a child overhears racial slurs directed at a family’s gardener, or sees their country’s black leadership belittled on the evening news, lessons of ‘us versus them’ take root.
How do black learners at these schools experience daily life? How do they navigate hallways where whispers, jokes or outright discrimination seem routine?
Schools are not merely academic institutions; they are moral ones too. If WAP and DHPS are serious about combating racism, they must act decisively by expelling racist learners, whether black or white.
These were deliberate, targeted acts from students at some of Namibia’s most prestigious schools – the very places that educate the crème de la crème. And most likely from well-to-do families. Any suggestion that they didn’t understand that what they did was racism is disingenuous.
This incident did not occur in isolation. It emerged from environments meant to nurture Namibia’s brightest minds.
Racism is not a natural instinct. It is absorbed from homes, communities, and yes, schools.
No child wakes up deciding to hate, to demean, or to claim superiority over others based on skin tone.
As Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry reminded us in the song '7 Seconds': “When a child is born into this world, it has no concept of the tone of skin it's living in.”
Children notice skin only after the world teaches them to.
When a child overhears racial slurs directed at a family’s gardener, or sees their country’s black leadership belittled on the evening news, lessons of ‘us versus them’ take root.
How do black learners at these schools experience daily life? How do they navigate hallways where whispers, jokes or outright discrimination seem routine?
Schools are not merely academic institutions; they are moral ones too. If WAP and DHPS are serious about combating racism, they must act decisively by expelling racist learners, whether black or white.
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Namibian Sun
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