Several parents of children who attend a California elementary school are outraged and demanding answers after a sixth grader allegedly drew racist artwork and gave them to a Black student.
The incident took place at Pepper Tree Elementary School where the student in question handed out drawings that wrote “you’re my favorite monkey” and “to my favorite cotton picker.”
The mother of the student who received the drawings has been rattled ever since her child brought the artwork home and has since pulled her daughter from the school. She told KTLA that her daughter has suffered harassment from other students in the past and the Upland Unified School District has done little to help.
Other parents, including Maylana and Rome Douglas, also say one of their three children has been subject to racism on multiple occasions.
“They said that they were going to give her [a drawing] that specifically said, ‘You’re my favorite slave,’ and they were going to show her as a slave hanging from a tree,” Maylana Douglas told KTLA.
They further added that a group of girls told their daughter that they were offering back rubs and massages because it is Black History Month.
“It’s your month, you’re entitled to back rubs,” Rome Douglas said the girls told his daughter. “And apparently, someone told her, ‘Well, maybe only half the month because you’re only half Black.”
Around the same time last year, a teacher in the school district was placed on leave after making anti-Asian remarks during the annual Lunar New Year celebrations.
“I want to make it perfectly clear that we have a strict zero-tolerance policy on any type of hate speech, harassment,’ Upland USD Board President Sherman Garnett said in the video posted on YouTube addressing the matter.
Meanwhile, the school’s PTA president, Robin Allen, hopes the continued incidents of racism are rectified.
“I’m hoping that the district does not brush this under the rug as they’ve brushed issues under the rug in the past,” she told KTLA. “We want to know what zero-tolerance means. This is not the first time a situation like this has happened. It’s not going to be the last time that this situation happens, but the most important thing is our response to the situation.”
In a statement, school officials said the following:
“An investigation took place immediately upon learning about these disgusting, racist drawings students gave to another child in their class … The content in those cards is shocking and abhorrent. We deeply regret that our student has had to endure the hurt that race based bullying causes.”
They would not disclose the name or identity of the student who drew the artwork due to privacy laws.
Parents at the school are scheduled to meet on Tuesday to bring up the matter to the school’s board members.
