Fun, or as it may be, not so fun fact: I was once expelled from school. What I did, though it once felt important, isn’t anymore. In fact, it never was. Why it happen to me and none of the other kids involved however, is, and always will be. 

I was ‘the Blackone.’ Quite literally, I was referred to as ‘the Black one’ that they wanted ‘to be expelled’. And so naturally, I became the scapegoat that allowed my White peers to escape unscathed.

“You’re never going to see her again”, they told the rest of the students. I tell you, it felt like my whole world ended right then and there. I’d never felt such fear.

My formal punishment lasted for all of 24 hours before they changed their mind and told me I could return to school as normal. A decision I was told to be grateful for as it was a “mercy” that some felt I did not deserve. Though over the years, it has become increasingly clear that there was no real mercy. Rather, it was the stench of injustice that lay lingering in my wake, far too potent in the air for any them to ignore or waft away. 

Twenty-four hours, though that didn’t prevent my extended informal exile. My tutor didn’t speak to me for the rest of year. My Head of House told me that I no longer belonged there and repeatedly conveyed the sentiment. As for my teachers, most of them awkwardly avoided all eye contact. And though some looked at me sympathetically, the hurt and humiliation in my expression was apparently never quite moving enough to warrant any genuine comfort or support. 

As far as the outside eye was concerned, I was “free” to re-assimilate into school society. But in truth, I was isolated and that’s how I spent the rest of my time at that school. 

Twenty-four hours, though the residual emotional bruising stayed with me for years after. Largely because it was generally a terrible experience, but it was amplified by my inability to comprehend just how big a role race played in my treatment. I took my Blackness out of it and instead, blamed myself for everything I was going through and lay all fault and responsibility solely at my feet.

For years, I bought into what they had been saying. That I was deserving of that hollowing experience, I was deserving of the trauma that came with it and undeserving of empathy. Yet somehow, though our actions were the same, no one else around me was subjected to that alienation. I was led to believe that treatment was a fair and appropriate response. Of which, regardless of the actions of a school student, it is not.

We play a very dangerous game when we ‘take race out of it’. I understand that it is not always the sole cause, though believe that more often than not, it plays a significant factor. Especially in the treatment of Black children who are often impacted by adultification bias.

Adultification is when children are perceived as older than they are and are therefore not given the same care and protection that is owed to minors. It can lead to criminalisation, harsher jail sentences, higher rates of punishment in schools and a lack of safeguarding. It can happen to all children, though there is a unique and dehumanising form which happens to Black children, in which they are not perceived as deserving victims.

The UK recently witnessed a case of this. Yes, I’m thinking of Child Q as I write: the 15-year-old Black girl who was strip searched in school, without a parent or guardian present, after being accused of being in possession of cannabis.

Our stories are very different, hers far more extreme and unimaginably horrific. In many ways, I don’t even think they are comparable. Yet, I’ve recently found myself rehashing my experience in defence of her. 

I was sat around a table, again, the only Black person there, engaged in heavy conversation about what happened to her. I had recently been triggered by the dark side of Twitter that argued that we needed to take race out of the conversation and was equally jarred when a similar line of thinking was broached. 

While agreeing that what had happened to Child Q was wrong, a voice around the table said that they would be interested to know what other factors, such as her behaviour or prior offences, could have contributed to the way in which she was treated. It wasn’t said with malice and indeed some may not understand the issue with that statement. But it has deep connotations which I didn’t know how to begin to explain, but I felt I had to.

I was triggered and so, I told my story. I shared because while our experiences are not on par, at the end of the day, Child Q and I are one in the same: both students who were mistreated for being Black. I shared because empathy and understanding is always easier when it is inspired by someone you know.

I shared because comments like that insinuate that she, a child, is in some way at fault for her racial trauma and ignore the role that race played in her experience. As if her having been in possession of cannabis would have ever justified what happened.

I shared because a part of me felt the need to prove that the racism in her story was real. I sat there mentally shouting: “Look! If you can see the blatant racism in what happened to me then surely you can see it in her story too!” And sure enough, they did.

As I said, the comment wasn’t intended with malice. It was merely a lack of education on that point. An understanding that I was both happy and resentful to give. 

The thing is, I hate sharing that story. I hate reliving that time in my life. And I hate all the emotions that it brings back up to the surface. But more and more I find myself digging up that truth in defence of others who have been victimised for being ‘the Black one’. Because unfortunately for us Black folk, reliving your trauma is the easiest way to get others to understand the struggles of Blackness. It’s the easiest way for some to understand why we cannot take race out of it.

To have race in it, as much as some may believe, is not to remove responsibility from the individual. It’s not to ignore other factors within a story. It is simply to acknowledge the vital role that race plays in our treatment. It is to acknowledge and understand where we as individuals are at true fault and hold responsibility for our actions and experiences and where what happens to us is no longer a fault of our own, but a fault of the system and bias of those in power.

We cannot take race out of it, for to remove it is to lay undue blame at the feet of the oppressed. It is to tell them that they are at fault for their own ill-treatment and racial trauma, of which we are not. 

And on that note *Sips Tea* 

More on Race & Nationality

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