The attack on a Black girl by a gang of white teenagers makes clear the UK education system falls far short of its duty of care for Black children.
Two weeks ago, a year-old Black girl in Surrey was captured on camera being attacked by a group of white people. Punches were thrown; kicks aimed at her; her braids were ripped out.
Adults egged on the fight. She seemed alone in facing the brutality. Passersby did nothing. There is a yearning, I think, for many of us who watched that video. We want to step in. Push aside the white children and adults who are attacking her, pulling the braids out from her sensitive scalp. Whisk her off someplace where we can tend to her wounds. Put ice on the bruises. Give her ginger tea. This sounds romantic, because it is. Because at the moment, there is no way to protect the Black girls who have become, thanks to the internet, symbolic of so many of our wider experiences.
As outsiders, we know very little about the incident itself: only that it occurred in Surrey, Ashford, outside the Thomas Knyvett College, an academy school for pupils aged 11β And then suddenly a gang of white girls were outside your classroom, saying they're going to beat you up. We also know that many of us have been through similar experiences.
We have been traumatised by our experiences as young Black girls in British education systems, woefully under-equipped to deal with any kind of bullying - let alone the racially-motivated kind. According to the Daily Mirror, in more than 7, pupils were suspended over racist incidents in schools.
