Jan Harder is a politician, she should be held up to the highest standard of political correctness. She got away with a racist remark, and that showed that we still have a long way to go in the fight for racism. However those beating up Frank are kids. While I do not deny discrimination involved in this unfurtunate incidence, I do not want to encourage parents of Frank to approach the beating as a racist case, but rather as a bullying case. Note the subtle difference between racism and discrimination: racism is a form a discrimination, but discrimination takes on many forms, as I mentioned in other post, examples of discrimination include physical, location, language, race, etc.
I don't know the parents of Frank either, but when I read something like this, I'd ask myself: "What would I do if I were Frank's parents?" So my primary concerns would be:
1) to ensure that my kid is safe and sound in school, both physically and mentally;
2) to seek resolution with bullies with the help from school administration and bullies' parents if need to
3) to closely monitor changes in my kid, both physically and mentally in the forthcoming weeks.
This also brought up an interesting topic: can a grade 5 kid fully understand the meaning and implications of racism like adults do? Is it wise to teach kids to view people as "us and them" at such young age? If so, how do parents communicate issues like racism to their kids? At what age?
One thing for sure: this is not only a learning process for the kid, but also a learning process for parents.
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