HATE in the Hallways Recognizing the history of defamatory symbols can help schools see FEWER of them.

BY MARILYN ELIAS ILLUSTRATION BY LINCOLN AGNEW

Two pink swastikas and a racist epithet are painted on the entrance to Martin Avenue Elementary School in Bellmore, New York. ¶ Students at a Springfield, Missouri, high school defy school policy by wearing T-shirts bearing the Confederate flag to memorialize a recently deceased classmate who had embraced the flag as part of his Southern heritage. ¶ A private Islamic school in Bellevue, Washington, is vandalized repeatedly with hateful grafti, leading some parents to feel their children are not safe on campus.

SPRING 2015%31 IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to know exactly how The targeted students—and others many incidents of hateful grafti and belonging to targeted identity groups— other defamatory behavior occur in receive the message that returning to schools every year—but they do, in business as usual is more important than schools and communities of every size, providing them a safe place to learn. In location and description. Whether it’s addition, the opportunity to educate the someone scrawling a swastika on a ofending students is lost. Fighting Hate locker or kids coming to school in But many educators and students With Love blackface for Halloween, school lead- realize neither the horrific origin of ers struggle with how to react construc- some of these symbols and words, nor Tracy Hobbs tells of an tively when students denigrate or vilify how they’re used now to sow hatred and incident at Lake Orion the identities of other students through intimidation. Here are some examples High School in Lake images or symbols. of hate symbols that commonly appear Orion, Michigan, that Disagreement over how to respond in schools, with a descriptions of their illustrates how a whole to hateful symbols often stems from history and current usage. school can be marshaled ignorance about how much children are in healing from hate- really affected by these incidents. The Lightning Bolts ful acts. He was a faculty fact is, encounters with hostile grafti in Two slanted vertical bolts, popular advisor for the school’s the school environment can significantly emblems of current white suprema- gay-straight alliance hinder students’ mental health and aca- cist groups, originally were the sym- when someone broke demic progress, reports child psycholo- bol of Hitler’s bodyguards. They grew into the club’s campus gist Lori Evans, Ph.D., of the Child Study to represent “an unholy trinity, the showcase and stole its Center at New York University Langone worst aspects of Nazism,” according rainbow flag. Later that Medical Center. If a student identifies as to Mark Pitcavage, Ph.D., director of day, the flag appeared in part of a targeted group—be it racial, reli- investigative research for the Anti- a common area, shred- gious or LGBT-identified—these experi- Defamation League. The emblems were ded, and marked with ences can trigger anxiety and depres- worn by concentration camp guards, the words “Fags must sion, even in children with no prior men- Waffen-SS (the elite military units) die.” The principal had tal health issues, says Evans. “We’ve seen and the Gestapo (Hitler’s secret police). it removed immediately these kids here. Unless the school reacts and then met with con- in a way that ensures the school commu- Swastika cerned students and the nity is behind him and he’s safe, he can Linked historically to many differ- faculty advisers. They feel very intimidated.” ent cultures and religions—Buddhist, set up a table in the Some school staff may wish to keep Hindu, Native American—with var- commons the next day, hateful graffiti incidents as low pro- ied spiritual meanings, the swastika decorated it with rain- file as possible, disciplining the ofend- became the insignia of right-wing bow balloons and dis- ers (if they can be found) and moving on German nationalists in the early 20th tributed pledge cards quickly. The choice to respond this way century. Nazis then embraced it in the reading, “I do not toler- means that the adults responsible for the 1920s, and it became the major symbol ate hate at my school.” safety of all students never acknowledge of Nazi Germany. It’s a trademark of More than 700 stu- the role identity played in the incident. neo-Nazi groups worldwide. dents signed the cards. The two students who defaced the flag were caught and suspended, but the bigger lesson was Responding to Hate that their classmates Don’t wait to find hateful grafti before making a overwhelmingly rejected response plan. Teaching Tolerance’s publication their bigotry. Responding to Hate and Bias at School can help you be proactive before, during and after such an incident. Look for it on the Publications page at tolerance.org.

32!TEACHING TOLERANCE LIGHTNING BOLTS swastika confederate flag celtic cross

Confederate Flag 1882 and 1951, an estimated 4,730 people Recurrent or particularly dramatic inci- One of many flags used by Southern sol- were lynched in the (many dents may merit a press conference. diers during the Civil War, the flag known sources argue that the actual number Even very young children should as the Southern Cross emerged as the is much higher); the vast majority were understand what has happened the wake most popular and became the key symbol African American. White individuals of a symbolic hate incident, says Frances of the Confederacy. After the war, it was were rarely sentenced for their participa- Bennett, principal at Martin Avenue an icon of Southern pride. At the 1948 tion in lynchings and, if so, were usually Elementary. Teachers should assess how breakaway political conven- pardoned. Lynchings peaked in 1892, but much the students already know and tion favoring segregation, the flag became continued well into the 1980s. explain why what they saw was inappro- the group’s informal banner and then priate. “We go into the historic aspects for became linked with the battle against Blackface Costumes older kids,” says Bennett. She talks to the racial integration, according to The An outgrowth of European shows and child who created the symbol, explaining Confederate Battle Flag: America’s Most carnivals featuring masked charac- why it’s hurtful, and always calls in par- Embattled Emblem by John M. Coski. ters, minstrel shows were a mainstay ents. “They may say, ‘Oh, he didn’t mean Some Southern residents still use the of 19th-century entertainment in the it in that way.’ But I make sure parents Confederate flag to honor their heritage, United States. White performers used know the seriousness of this, and that as says Pitcavage, “but they may not under- burnt cork to blacken their faces and the child moves on, it could get more seri- stand the ofensive efect this flag has on mockingly portray slaves or rural blacks. ous.” The North Bellmore Public Schools people. The Confederacy was formed in They performed caricature-packed com- district has a character education program order to protect and maintain the institu- edy skits, music and dancing that rid- that focuses on a diferent character trait tion of slavery.” The flag is currently used iculed as lazy, stu- each month; Bennett points outs that by the Ku Klux Klan; the white suprem- pid bufoons. Blackface costumes today hate symbol incidents can often prompt acist Council of Conservative Citizens evoke bitter memories of the once-cel- “teachable moments” anchored to a char- (which has referred to African Americans ebrated humiliation and degradation of acter trait the students have studied. as “a retrograde species of humanity”); African Americans. School psychologist Tracy Hobbs and the (which advo- agrees that, when hate symbols surface, cates for a second Southern Celtic Cross capitalizing on teachable moments in and a Christian theocratic society domi- Originally an ancient symbol of Irish the short term translates into preven- nated by European Americans). Celtic pride, the Celtic Cross is shaped like tion in the long term. a rectangular cross over a circle. A mod- “If you discipline a kid, it’s affect- Nooses/Lynching Re-enactments ern version featuring a square cross over ing that kid,” says Hobbs. “If you turn After the Civil War ended slavery, lynching a circle is a prominent emblem of white it into a teaching moment and educate became a key tactic whites supremacists supremacy. It is the logo of , the whole student body about some- used to intimidate and attempt to control the oldest and, for years, most heavily thing, you can afect everyone.” African Americans, especially in south- trafcked white supremacist website. ern and border states. Lynchings were Elias is a freelance writer in Los Angeles, ostensibly perpetrated against individu- The sudden appearance of hateful graf- California. als who had committed crimes, although fiti or symbols can present a learn- the charges were largely fabricated. The ing opportunity for the whole school true intent of these often public acts of community. Clear information about torture and murder was not to pursue jus- how to identify the symbol and what Toolkit tice but to send the message that African it means promptly given to staff, Help your students counteract hate with symbols that express Americans were unsafe and unprotected students and parents—perhaps compassion and justice. in their communities, and that just being even posted on the school website— visit » tolerance.org/ black was punishable by death. Between can quell rumors and speculation. hate-in-hallways

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