Community Conversation - Is it Bullying or is it Racism?

The following is part of DougCo Collective’s “Community Conversations” and was written by a Douglas County community member (parent, student, teacher/staff or community member).  The intent of “Community Conversations” is to give members of the Douglas County community an opportunity to contribute to the larger DCSD conversation with their lived experiences and perspectives. 

Community member, Cathy Lees’ comment at the Equity Advisory Council meeting on May 3, 2023

Estimated Read Time: 3 minutes

There is something about calling the racism recently reported in the school district "bullying" that feels minimizing and really misses the big picture. 

Calling it “bullying,” ignores that more than 150 students were part of the group chat, said nothing, and only bailed when they were notified that the group chat had been reported. 

It's not "bullying" when the student reported it, and administrators thought his claim was suspect.

It's not "bullying" when district leadership didn't reach out to the family until after they spoke publicly at a board meeting.

It's not “bullying” when children are forced to publicly give their names and share their stories in order to be taken seriously, while at the same time, an adult was allowed to hide her face and not provide her full name to spout some weird conspiracy nonsense. 

It's not “bullying” when adults make public comments at the same meeting after the brave children spoke, claiming that racism didn't exist in our district until the Equity Policy was created.

It's not “bullying” when these same adults tell the students who were the recipients of hate speech and racism that they were sorry for what happened to them.

It's not “bullying” that only after this went public, some students were suspended, while the student being "bullied" cannot go to school anymore because it is no longer safe for him.

This is an example of systemic racism in the district and in our community. 

If our district had a functioning equity policy that was implemented to educate the staff and the students, this would have looked very different.

First, the few kids who actually participated in the hate speech might not otherwise have done so. But if they did, maybe some of the students on the group chat thread would have stopped it as soon as it happened, saying it was wrong.

But if none of the kids stopped it, the administrator who heard the student's story would have believed him. The administrator would have known their desire to not believe it was rooted in their own bias.

If that administrator believed the student, there would have been a process to address issues like this, including a method to track hate speech and other forms of civil rights violations at a district level.

Equity is not achieved by an anti-bullying policy; it is achieved by educating students, staff, and parents about equity and the impacts of systematic oppression of all underrepresented groups. It is about changing policies to be equitable and not to favor one group over another. It's about understanding and acknowledging our biases, not to ignore them but to eliminate their unintentional impact. I refuse to call this “bullying” because it is systemic racism in action.