Black Park Hill High student stood up to racism. He deserved help, not suspension | Opinion
A white student at Park Hill High School directed a racial slur at a Black student, who reacted by pinning the student against a wall. School administrators suspended Colby Barker, the Black student, for seven days.
The racial slur was the n-word.
As a result of this injustice, Colby, a senior football player, organized a protest and helped lead a walkout Thursday at the school.
Video footage from the Kansas City school’s auditorium that day captured several students chanting in unison: “Free Colby.” What I viewed sent chills down my spine. Kudos to Park Hill High students for standing in solitude with one of their classmates.
But they shouldn’t stop there, and should instead take a lesson from the Shawnee Mission School District. Last year, students there worked with district leaders to update its student handbook. Students were upset after a white male at Shawnee Mission East High School provoked a fight with a Black female by using a racial slur. Despite being battered and bruised, the girl similarly was suspended from school for fighting.
Although criminal charges were brought against the boy for pummeling the girl, students took school leaders to task about the district’s tolerance for hate speech and racial discrimination on campus. This year, Shawnee Mission schools updated their policy to spell out the punishment for the use of such language.
Park Hill students who walked out in support of Colby were threatened with truancy, according to Colby. But most of them were only marked absent from class during the outside protest, he said.
None of us should condone violence of any kind, but this case is even more complicated. Colby is without a permanent home and living with a friend and their parents. He said he has breakfast and lunch while at school. Without that lifeline, Colby does not have many options to eat. It’s not like he can just go into the pantry at his friend’s home and help himself, he said.
Park Hill school leaders should have taken into account Colby’s living situation when handing down his punishment.
“They threw me out like trash,” Colby said of school administrators. “They took food out of my mouth.”
Where are the compassionate leaders in Park Hill? Something must be done to address this. Would in-school suspension suffice in cases such as Colby’s? That is something the Park Hill School District Board of Education must consider.
Sexual threats to football player’s friend
After a male student called Colby a racial slur and threatened harm against a female student, Colby pinned the boy against a wall.
“He told me if he caught my friend going to the bathroom, he would follow her and have his way with her,” Colby said. He added the male student had sexually harassed his friend, the young woman in question, for years.
No blows were thrown, Colby said. Before the incident could escalate, one of Colby’s teammates pulled him away from the student.
Didn’t matter, Colby said. He was still suspended. He is scheduled to return to school Sept. 9. Colby questions why he was disciplined and the other student wasn’t punished for calling him “a dirty (n-word),” Colby said.
That student is no longer at Park Hill, according to Colby. After the altercation, he transferred, Colby claims.
“They allowed him to transfer without consequences following him to his new school,” Colby said.
Kelly Wachel, a spokeswoman for the Park Hill School District, said the offending student hasn’t been at the school since the incident occurred. Citing student privacy laws, Wachel was not able to comment on individual student discipline. But the district’s policy against inappropriate language would apply if an epithet was used, she said.
In general, “if that word was used, there would be consequences,” Wachel said.
After pouring over the district’s student handbook, I could not find a policy that specifically spells out discipline for the use of racial or ethnic slurs. Much like nearby Shawnee Mission schools, the Park Hill school board should use this incident as an impetus to update its student code of conduct to address such hateful rhetoric.
‘Nastiest word in the English language’
In his 2014 scholarly essay, “The N-word: Lessons Taught, Lessons Learned,” Arizona State University English professor Neal Lester notes the racial epithet is the “the filthiest, dirtiest, nastiest word in the English language.”
He was spot on.
The n-word has been used historically by white people against Black people, Lester told me last year. “It didn’t just come out of nowhere,” he said.
Colby is a member of the Trojans football team. Because of his suspension, he missed a Senior Night game Aug. 30. He wasn’t allowed to play in Friday’s game at North Kansas City, either.
Colby has had a tough go of it lately. He said the past week or so has taken a mental and physical toll on him. Colby’s fight for justice — he wants his suspension overturned, issued an apology, and for top-level school administrators to be let go — has come at a cost. Since he was suspended from school, he’s fought mental and physical exhaustion and has lost about 20 pounds, he said.
“It’s been stressful,” he said.
I don’t doubt that it has. Sometimes standing up for what’s right isn’t easy.
