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At 19 I am able to read tweets and comments that attack my character and brush most of them off (to an extent). But at 14, when this started, seeing people (that have no knowledge of my case) choose to judge me as a person would have been unbearable.
Many of the children who are experiencing/have experienced what I did are much younger than I was at the time. When you suggest that I was ‘stroppy’ for calling out an unfair policy, you are not only diminishing the discrimination I faced...
You are also discouraging others from speaking out about what they are going through/have gone through. You do not know us and you don’t share our experiences. We are not ‘stroppy’, or difficult, we are brave.
It is hard to speak out about racial discrimination in general, but even harder when people hide behind ‘free speech’ as a means to insult and belittle these experiences. Suggesting that it’s ‘just hair’, and not racial discrimination, is gaslighting.
I haven’t asked anyone for an analysis of my case. This policy (at the time) only applied to Afro hair, I don’t need to be told that it had nothing to do with my race, or hear comparisons to situations that would only apply if I was at another school.
Finally, I can’t help but address the misogynoir of the ‘stroppy teenager of colour’ comment. I was 14 when this happened to me and had the support necessary to fight it. If I was another race, or not a girl, would I still be described this way for challenging an unfair policy?
