By: Mikayla Holmes, Caitlyn Rooney from everythinglubbock.com
Parents and students from Lubbock testified in Austin Monday with stories of racism in several local schools. They spoke at the Texas State Capitol in support of House Bill 4625.
HB 4625 proposed the implementation of a strategy that would prevent bullying on the basis of “the victim’s actual or perceived race, ethnicity, color, national origin, sex, gender, religion, disability status…”
It also proposed training and staff development for teachers and administrators on the proposed strategy. The individuals who testified were Phyliss Gant, Mary Pegues, Tracy Kemp, Shardae McGaha and Trinity Hawkins.
Kemp said she moved to Lubbock from Michigan two years ago. She described her experience in Texas as “horrific.” Kemp said her son was the victim of identity-based bullying while he was a student at Laura Bush Middle School. She testified that her son was called the n-word within only a few months of starting school.
“I had to make a call to the FBI hotline, because that’s how bad it had gotten in our school district,” Kemp testified. Despite extensive local news coverage, Kemp said the school district did not publicly recognize that racial bullying occurred until it made national headlines.
Kemp and McGaha were among several other parents who took action against the Lubbock-Cooper Independent School District for the discrimination and harassment they said their children experienced. In April 2022, Kemp and McGaha’s children were both featured on an Instagram page called “LBMS_m0nkeys” which stood for “Laura Bush Middle School Monkeys.”
“I am not a monkey. I have a name,” Trinity Hawkins, a student at the Slaton Independent School District, testified. Hawkins said she was expected to quietly deal with the racism and identity-based bullying and got in trouble when she stood up for herself. Hawkins testified that is not fair for younger kids to deal with racism in schools.
“It mentally drains you,” Hawkins said. “It hinders you from trying to learn.”
Several parents in Lubbock made waves in 2022 about what they called “racial discrimination.” Parents claimed their children were called racial slurs and whipping sounds were played on smart phones as they walked in the halls.
“We have a pandemic in Lubbock, Texas, of racism. That has been documented for almost two years. With no resolution,” said Phyllis Gant, Lubbock NAACP legal redress chair.
If passed, the law would take effect at the beginning of the 2023-24 school year.