Have you Ever?

By Charlie, Gavin, & Jonas

LCTA survey and results about discrimination

4th and 5th grade teachers at Lyle-Crouch Traditional Academy were asked to give this survey to African American, and multi-raced African American students created by a group of LCTA CHANGEMakers to determine if and how our school contributed to the school to prison pipeline. 

Students were asked to take the “Have You Ever” survey with complete honesty and the option to remain anonymous. They were told that the survey was a part of our campaign to help stop racism against African Americans and for children to stop being treated badly because of their race. The survey is for us to collect data to help us make it right. We are happy to report that Lyles-Crouch has had very few instances where African American children have been made to feel differently, or treated unfairly, because of their color. However, of the instances that have occurred, many were from other children. This tells us we have some work to do.

Here is a summary of the results:

When asked to describe a time when you were treated differently by ANYONE at school because of your race, and how it made you feel, most students (55%) did not have a specific incident of being treated differently because of their race. Of the few students (48%) who have experienced being treated differently because of their race, here are some of their comments:

• I think this was in preschool but i remember asking some girls to play and most of them said yes but this one girl who apparently every one listened to and she said no and i asked why and she said “cuz your to dark” witch actually made me confident in who i am today because i know that the color of my skin makes everyone special so i then asked the other girls to play and they left that one girl and started to play with me and I felt bad for leaving out that one girl so we invited her to play and she accepted and she then knew never to judge someone by their color.
• Really mad and sad

• I wasn’t really treated as a bad student because of my race except for just having mean friends talking about skin tone and how people that are black look like crisps because of the sun.
• It was embarrassing and very sad to see my classmates bully me because they also said black lives do not matter and this was at my old school.
•  it made me sad and mad
• i could not play with my friend because his white friends did’t like me and i was not happy about that
• It was a long time ago but a group of to kids were playing ball i asked but they laugh and continued when i asked again they were like i never existed and it made me fell i was no one to them or people but i never gave up because i had people like me on my side and not like me
•  all the time when i play games with my friends at recces (at old school) in 2nd grade they would never pass me the ball (it was soccer) and like they rarely gave me a chance to do anything. which didnt make me feel well
• I don’t remember being treated differently because of my race, but I remember being told that I was “Too dark” to be a specific character when I was in 1st or kindergarden

When asked to describe their experiences with racism outside of school by anyone in Alexandria, and how they handled it, and here are some students responses:

• Once my sister and I were at the playground and older white kids said that we had to move because we were black and that was their playground my little sister tried to stand her ground but they made her cry. So we left but no one knew about it.
• I was at a park in Alexandria and an elder lady came up to us and said “we shouldn’t be playing here” when other white teenagers were playing and we noticed it was because of the color of our skin and we then ignored her because we didn’t want to get in any trouble and she then threatened us to call the police so we stayed and continued to play and we noticed she was gone and she actually didn’t do anything.
• I was at a target register and a white man was rushing a hard-working black girl to get his stuff scanned. Then, I told him to stop and be patient.
• I told them to stop and be a good thing to the world.
• I was told by a student’s mother that I was dark and ugly.
• well all the time because of my dad since basically everyone in acps knows him and like hes decently known in Alexandria some people don’t just talk bad about him sometimes they also talk about me tbh i don’t really notice it if someone does it i just ignore them or i just move away or something
• I was  told that I was “Too dark” to dress up like a character was one and I’m not sure how I handled it
• i don’t know his name but my friend was just walking and some white guy comes up to him like oh you should be here boy and started having a argument because my friend and i were black and he kept going on and on and he then he was like go different just like yall two and we told him we are not different we are just like you we are human and we are another race but that does not me treat us like this and he got mad and walked away and said next time i see you two little boys on this property something gonna happen so you better watch out and we said we guess what we live here and we are not scared of you so you will be seeing us again