Tola’s journey (Chapter from Brown Girl in the Ring)

Tola’s journey

Olutola Barbara Ferguson-Ogunyemi – what a strong name for a little girl. This was the one I thought I could protect. She was the centre of anything good in my life and I was so grateful that she hadn’t been exposed to my blood family during those first couple of traumatic years – which was a better start to life than either her siblings or I had. However, between losing her brothers at such an early age and witnessing the constant, emotional pain I endured being dragged in and out of court every other week, I failed to protect her. As she got older, she did carry trauma from her early years, but I had thought that by me being honest with her, the experiences in her life wouldn’t mark her in the same way as it had the rest of us. 

Tola started the Steiner School’s kindergarten at six, class one at seven, before leaving at the age of eight. Steiner education promotes a slower, more gentle approach to literacy and numeracy, instead concentrating more on imagination, nature and creativity in the earlier years of education. I wanted her to have this gentler experience of schooling, however, with Tola being very bright and a wordsmith like her dad, she was craving more challenge, and as she put it, was determined to go to ‘proper’ school. We were very reluctant to put her into mainstream school; we had to protect her from the racism in Scotland for as long as we could. 

We came to the conclusion that there was only one real option. For Tola to gain more stimulus at school, but without the exposure to the racism that thrives in mainstream schools in Scotland, she would have to join Gordonstoun prep school – no matter the cost. Gordonstoun prep school is an international, multicultural school with all different races. There, she would have other mixed-race and black children for classmates, which is very important when growing up as a minority. We believed, with the £12,000 a year fees, it would be highly unlikely that Tola would experience racism there, but if she did, the school with its reputation would want to quickly stamp it out. 

Tola attended Gordonstoun prep school for the next three and a half years and, as we’d hoped, was not exposed to the racism that me, my husband and my other children had all had to endure in mainstream school. This did, however, put a greater financial strain on us, with all our earnings going towards paying both Sola’s (who was still in Steiner education at this time) and Tola’s school fees. Although it was draining us in every way, we had no other choice. The only way to ensure that Tola would not experience racism at school was for us to pay, very dearly, for her education. This in turn ensured I had to work day and night to pay for it. 

At 11 years old, Tola, with Joy’s support, came to me saying that she now wanted to be a ‘normal’ girl and go to a ‘normal’ primary school in the neighbouring village to ours. 

“Mummy, if I stay at junior school (Gordonstoun), I don’t think I will be Tola anymore.” 

It was terrifying for me to hear that she felt like she was losing herself, but I heard her very clearly and something inside me knew she was right; that it was time for change. Her days at Gordonstoun were long; they started earlier and finished later than ‘normal’ schools and, on top of that was the 35-minute journey at both ends of her day. By the time she got home after school she only had enough time to eat her dinner, complete her homework and have a bath before it was bedtime. At that point we hadn’t really thought past her current academic year, as the following year she was to be going on to high school; a mainstream high school, where she could – and most likely would – experience (at best), unconscious, racial bias. That thought had terrified me even more, so I tried not to think about it and instead focused on what I could do to make things better now: find a good primary school. 

Thankfully there was a primary school with a great reputation close by that some of my client’s children had attended before going off to prep school, so I was relatively confident she would be safe there. However, I was unaware that by protecting Tola from the realities of the outside world, I had in fact made it very difficult for her to navigate how to fit in, resulting in her becoming scared to do anything in case she did the wrong thing. It didn’t help when one of the parents told lies about Tola, trying to turn the other parents against her so that she wouldn’t be allowed to play with their children. This was Tola’s introduction to unconscious racism. 

She was aware her siblings had experienced racism and she had witnessed mine, but now she was experiencing her own. Her views of the world had drastically changed to one that was alien to her. She was being taught – and was learning – that she was different. When the time arrived to decide about her high school, I hoped that she would choose to return to Steiner, but she was determined to go to the local mainstream high school. 

Within the first few weeks of high school the racism started. She was called racist names, told that her afro hair was disgusting and was encouraged to cut herself on social media by some of the girls from the school. She spiralled down in no time at all, becoming more isolated and in search of protection from the racists, aligned herself with the ‘naughty’ children. I instantly recognised this – I had done the same thing when I was her age to try to protect myself. We made the decision to withdraw her from the mainstream high school and re-enrol her at the Steiner School, where eight months later she moved onto Drumduan Upper School – the school I had helped create for Sola’s class. 

In the time we were absent from having any children at the school, the Upper School had moved from Moray Arts Centre, having managed to acquire a piece of land located next to the familiar grounds of the original Steiner campus where Tola had attended kindergarten. To add further familiarity, some of her original kindergarten classmates were still there. However, unlike Sola’s experience of Steiner education, Tola’s was not blessed; in fact, since class two, she hadn’t really had a positive experience at all. Within weeks of starting Upper School after the summer, it started again. At first it was indirect – young boys thinking it was okay to use the ’N’ word flippantly – the same ignorance Sola has been battling against ever since his teens. 

Let me be very clear on how I feel about this: the word ‘nigger’ should never come out of a white person’s mouth – no matter the excuse. To still have to explain to white people today why this should be, beggars belief. But here we are and here I am. This word solely exists for white people to intentionally abuse and degrade black people, to terrorise black people and to impose superiority. Simple, no? After centuries of abuse, black people have reclaimed it and, in my view, now have full ownership of its use. We have taken this word and redefined its meaning, for use solely within the black community – exclusively between one another. 

However, some of us take it out into the world and expect white people, who are uneducated in our history, not to use it. They see young rappers – young, black rappers – using it; putting it out wrongly into the world and disempowering its meaning, and they mistake its flippant use in media as a sign that it’s a safe word for them to use too. 

Then there are some white people who think it’s ‘cool’ to say nigger. Their perception of being black is that it’s ‘cool’ – a fashion choice – and they want to imitate it. This is still wrong; it’s racially ignorant and makes it harder for us to be seen as people and not some trend. When a black person hears ‘nigger’ from a white person it tears through our souls. The word carries all our pain – it’s in our DNA, and that’s why I believe it should only ever be used in the privacy and intimacy of the black community; we have the right to do this. Tola was able to verbalise this belief to her class and peers and while some were able to take it on board, others took no notice. 

There was a black, mixed-race boy two years older than her, whose friends would regularly use the ’N’ word in his company. 

“He said it was okay and gave us ‘a pass’,” his friends would justify. 

I can remember how this had angered and frustrated Tola. These same boys, in the mindset of some of our younger communities that do not understand, would tell Tola she wasn’t cool enough to be black, and she felt betrayed and undermined at someone of colour allowing – permitting – white people to be racist. She learned that he was very confused about his identity as they spent more time together, and she was able to educate to him on what was acceptable. He began to stand up for himself . . . sometimes. 

In the beginning, some of the boys accepted that the ‘N’ word had to be off the table, but most of them continued to use it regardless, and even escalated its use from racially ignorant greetings to intentional pain- infliction. They were relentless. They began to straight-out call her ‘nigger’; they used racist language about the family and they showed strong disgust and utter contempt for her facial features and thickening body. The school was very small, with Tola’s class having only 14 children in it, with only four girls. Her friends didn’t support her; they turned their backs on her while she quickly became isolated again, falling into her own dark hole. 

Craig and I couldn’t believe our baby was having to endure racism and we struggled emotionally to accept it. How could we still be here all this time later? It was devastating and I found it difficult to focus on anything other than what my daughter was going through, all the while feeling powerless to stop it. I obsessed at night, reliving my own childhood memories; the ones I had tried to suppress. 

We couldn’t understand why all of a sudden this was happening and we needed answers, so we began to trawl the internet in the hope of finding them. That was when we finally discovered the words, ‘unconscious, racial bias’. I couldn’t believe what I was reading; there was a name for what had happened to me, for how I was treated. I knew in that moment that I wasn’t mad for feeling and believing that I’d always been treated unfairly because of the colour of my skin. And with that, I started to feel empowered; I had finally found something that would help me explain what my daughter was experiencing. 

The school’s management at the time was still the same team I had originally started the school with and like most of society, they were too scared to face the racism Tola was experiencing. I had to force them to look at it, which took nearly two months of repeated phone calls and emails, before they even acknowledged it, let alone addressed it. 

In the end, I had to involve my very dear friend who was also my lawyer. He advised that he was to be copied into any email correspondence I had with the school from now on. My lawyer’s reputation is known throughout the country – not a bragging right, just a fact – and the mere mention of his name was enough to incentivise the school into action. By the November I finally had a meeting with the management. 

Nobody wanted to be at that meeting. The atmosphere was fraught, the management looked sheepish and Craig was furious, so I decided I would speak first. I told them I understood why it had taken them so long to get to this point – that it was down to the fact that they didn’t really know how to handle it. How could they? They had ‘white privilege’. White privilege describes someone who lives their life absent from the consequences of racism, absent from structural discrimination and absent from their race being viewed primarily as an issue. 

I explained to the management that I didn’t want the boys punished as I didn’t think that was the correct way forward. Instead, I wanted Tola’s class – and the rest of the school for that matter – educated on racial awareness and the effects of racism. I had known some of the children since they were four years old and didn’t believe they were all truly racist; just ignorant. 

“So, why do you think this has taken so long?” Craig asked the room. 

There was an awkward silence. 

“I don’t know why,” one of the trustees answered honestly. “I know it’s wrong, but I just don’t know why we’ve found it so difficult.” 

That is what I call historical shame. We all carry it for one reason or another and it is the fundamental reason we don’t move very far forward in this. I explained this at the meeting and they showed signs they were beginning to understand. The Head suggested arranging a sit-down for Tola and the four boys (individually) who were still being racist. I thought this was a great idea and the first real step in the right direction. The meeting concluded with the trustees advising us that they were talking to a group with the intention of bringing them in to deliver an educational package, and asking me if I would be willing to come in and speak to the Upper School about racism. I agreed. 

Neither the educational package, nor my talk ever happened. 

I was still very concerned about the effect this was having on Tola. The school had gone through the procedure of speaking to the boys, many times, and put them on suspension warnings, but this hadn’t really made any difference. Despite the school’s warnings, the boys continued to be racist towards her, so we asked the parents of the class to meet with Craig and me so we could discuss the seriousness of what was going on. 

I was terrified at that meeting; some of the parents didn’t even bother to attend, while the ones who did were not fully aware of what had been going on. I found it difficult breaking through their defensive walls, their almost concrete denials to the mere concept that their children could be behaving in a racist manner, but after I’d finished explaining what unconscious, racial bias was, some of the parents slowly opened to the conversation. It was very insightful, with most of the parents at least portraying concern. Most, but not all. 

“I can’t see my daughter supporting Tola,” one of the mothers began. “She sees Tola as being beautiful and having everything . . . and to be honest, I’m not prepared to speak to her about it.” 

I left the meeting expressing that I didn’t actually believe all the children to be racist – more racially ignorant – but warned that if the children didn’t stop, I would have no other option than to involve the police. 

“I would hate for any of your children to be labelled ‘racist’ for the rest of their lives.” 

In the early spring, the school facilitated a safe space for Tola to sit down with the boys, individually, to express how their racist behaviour was affecting her. Thankfully, this was a very healing process for both Tola and most of the boys. However, the daughter of ‘Mrs I’m not prepared to speak to my daughter’, along with one of the boys, never let up. I watched Tola grow up very fast that year. It was very painful to see her discover and learn how racially biased the world was and to witness her fear and anger growing towards it.
Around three months later, I was shocked when Tola approached me with a question. 

“Is it okay for my teacher – my white teacher – to use the ’N’ word?” Tola asked while loitering at the utility room door as I sorted out some washing. I had felt her lingering, sizing-up for the right moment. She instantly had my attention. 

“Under no circumstances – why?” I asked, feeling a rising anxiety and a simmering anger. 

“My teacher said it today during a lesson on LGBTQ+. She told the class that, ‘saying faggot to a gay person was like calling someone a nigger’.” 

Shocked doesn’t come close to how I felt. We and the school had worked so hard to eradicate the racism in that class, and here was a teacher teaching those same children that it was okay to use the ‘N’ word to illustrate something in class. An email was soon sent to the school demanding that the teacher apologise to Tola for her wholly inappropriate use of the racial slur in her poor analogy. I didn’t care if she meant it or not, but it was important for Tola and the rest of the class to see the teacher take ownership of her racist error and acknowledge how it had made Tola feel. 

We never got a reply. Craig went to the school with Tola the following morning to speak to the Head, but before he could reach the building, they were approached by a teacher whom neither Craig nor I had ever spoken to before.

“Why, if Tola is experiencing racism, do I not know about it? How can I fix it if Tola doesn’t tell anyone?” This all said while looking directly at Tola, as if it was her fault she was been racially abused. 

“Excuse me,” Craig said interrupting her audacity, “who are you? Who do you think you are, speaking to her like that? Are you actually trying to blame Tola? There have been several racist incidents; there have been meetings; why don’t you know? Does no one at this school communicate? Do you know how hard it is to speak up when you are the minority and being racially abused?” 

“Yes!” the teacher began screaming. “Yes, I do know! I deal with racism; I’m English in Scotland.” 

“Yes, but you’re not a little girl being picked on by a whole load of boys because you look different,” Craig replied, shutting down her insolence. 

At this point, Craig could see the Head hurriedly making his way over to intervene, while Tola had, by now, begun to cry. 

“Hi, Craig, . . . ,” the Head began as the teacher slunk away. 

“This is ridiculous,” Craig interrupted. “Tola, go wait in the car – you’re not going to school today. Who was that – and why was she in my face? She claims to be one of Tola’s teachers, but she had no idea about all the racism.”

“She does take Tola’s class – once a week. I’ll find out why she isn’t up to speed, but I can assure you all of Tola’s teachers have been sent an email detailing the racism that’s been happening,” the Head explained hurriedly. 

“And my email? We’ve been expecting a response, but nothing. So, I had to come here to find out why Tola’s teacher is using racist language in class, only to have to put up with that from that teacher.” 

“I’m sorry I haven’t got back to you Craig – and I’m so sorry this has happened . . . I honestly don’t know what to say. I haven’t spoken with the teacher yet, she’d left for the day by the time I got your email, but I will be speaking to her this morning . . . I agree; an apology is needed; leave it with me.” 

Craig left the school believing a meeting would be arranged for the teacher to apologise to Tola. 

It was a further five weeks before anyone from the school sat down with us to discuss their intentions.

During this time, the teacher’s use of the ‘N’ word had acted as a catalyst – igniting the racism in Tola’s class to burst into life once again – and within two weeks there was a racist screen saver on another teacher’s laptop! The laptop, which belonged to the school, was used for PowerPoint presentations and was connected to the projector screen at the front of the class, fully blown-up for everyone’s amusement; everyone’s apart from Tola’s. We reported it immediately and were told the school would investigate instantly. They didn’t, and it was not removed instantly. Tola, off her own bat, removed it two weeks later. 

Unbelievably, Tola’s teacher, the one whose laptop had the racist screensaver, added even more misery. One day in class, the daughter of ‘Mrs I’m not prepared to speak to my daughter’ kept repeating to Tola that she wanted to say the ’N’ word to her, going on about how she just wanted to know how it felt to say it to her and to see if it upset her. This, as you can imagine, was very distressing for Tola, so she tried explaining to the girl that racism was illegal. The girl disagreed and continued to goad her and even called the teacher over for confirmation. 

“No, it’s not. You can’t go to jail for saying the ‘N’ word,” the teacher recklessly replied. 

It was only after this latest racist incident that we finally got our meeting with the school where we were told both teachers were no longer employed by the school. However, neither had been sacked nor disciplined. The ‘screensaver’ teacher had only been on a short-term contract and when it expired the school chose not to renew, while the ‘N’ word teacher simply left for another position at another school with her name and reputation unmarked. 

Oh, and it’s worth mentioning, despite being instructed to apologise by the Head and the trustees, she never did. She ignored them for long enough before simply refusing to do it. And her reason for not apologising? She said she had used the word in other schools, both mainstream and private, numerous times before and that no one else had ever complained about it. 

Either that is a shocking truth, or a cowardly lie. Both are equally disturbing. 

I was deeply saddened having to have the same conversations with my daughter that I’d had with her siblings; the same conversations that my dad had had with me; the conversations that would help her negotiate her way through the unconscious racism that still exists; the conversations about how to behave in a racially ignorant society, and why everything that happened to her would always be made to be her own fault. Unless something big changes, this will be what is laced throughout her life. I naively thought I could protect her from racism, but I couldn’t.

That being said, I do feel Steiner was the best place for her to experience these lessons in preparation for the outside world. Regardless of constantly having to chase them, their intentions and actions, or at times inactions, have inevitably helped my daughter learn what is and isn’t acceptable when dealing with racism, and the Head creating a space of truth and reconciliation has taught her how to have an open and honest conversation about racism and its effects. Tola left Steiner at the end of the academic year. 

###

Tola started home-schooling after the summer. We’d enrolled her after agreeing that she needed a break from feeling unsafe at school. She was to complete a two-week trial to see if she suited the online style of schooling, but by day ten, she had come to me worried that she wasn’t taking any of it in and that she missed being around people. With Steiner not an option, and with Tola determined not to go back to Gordonstoun, I really only had one option left: the local high school, from where she had previously been removed by me. 

We had an honest conversation, openly discussing the inevitable racism she would encounter. With hindsight, we both underestimated how much that would be. At the time, she didn’t think it was going to be an issue; with everything she had experienced at Steiner, she believed she was now better equipped to cope in a mainstream school, plus, she had convinced herself that she had only struggled to find acceptance before because she had been to so many different schools and had never stayed long enough to grow any strong-rooted friendships. This time, she already knew some people at the school from when she had attended before and had kept in contact with some of the girls she liked. 

I wasn’t so sure, but as a mother, I had learned by now that you cannot stop the outside world from crashing into your children’s lives – that you cannot prevent their horrendous lessons. I had always changed Tola’s environment to limit her exposure to the pain and shame of racism when she was younger, but by now I understood that that pain existed in any environment. I knew I had to accept that I couldn’t protect her from it anymore; this had to be Tola’s time to figure out how she would exist in her world. 

Under the pre-agreements that she would have to take the school bus – I believed this would help her develop some independence as she was too used to being chauffeured everywhere – and that she would have stay at the school and work through any issues that arose, no matter what life threw at her, until after her exams two years later, Tola re-joined the local high school by mid-October 2019. 

She quickly learned that she wasn’t accepted; plainly and simply because of the colour of her skin. 

She managed to make a couple of new friends in the first few days back at the school, but with her principles set at only making friends with people who were real and honest, by the end of the week she was into the negative in the friend count. She didn’t care; she knew her principles would make her a very unpopular 14-year-old – and they did – but by now, Tola had had it with unfairness. That’s why she couldn’t ignore the girl in her class who was body-shaming another girl – her own friend no less – and told her that it wasn’t nice to do that. First big mistake. In response, the girl made most of the year turn against Tola. 

It was in early November when we dropped her off in town, buzzing with excitement, to go to the fireworks display with the friends she’d kept. However, after only an hour we received a phone call. 

“Can you please come and pick me up?” Tola began through staccato sobs, “I’ve had to leave – there’s a girl . . . from my year threatening . . . to beat me up and to stab me. She’s drunk . . . and she’s with one of the racist boys from Steiner.” She sounded terrified. It was contagious. 

Craig was there in ten-minutes and took her straight to the police station to report the incident. The following day, he took Tola to speak to the boy’s mother about his behaviour, as the drunk girl had said he had orchestrated the attack. However, this was, as we expected, a waste of time, with the mother denying her son’s involvement as she was certain he didn’t even know the drunk girl. I could feel the familiar bruising on my head resurfacing from where it bumped against the brick wall. 

Nothing ever came of it; the girl was never charged and the boy was never spoken to, leaving us all concerned for Tola’s return to school, but fortunately, within a couple of weeks, the girl was expelled on a completely unrelated matter. 

And so it began, and within a few weeks it had escalated. 

“You’re a nigger and your dad’s a nigger, what’s it like?” the group of boys shouted, surrounding Tola as she sat on the floor in the middle of her PE class, while all the other children stood back and watched. 

The only person to defend her and pull her out of the circle was the girl Tola had called out for body-shaming during her first week. Tola phoned us straight away and we contacted the school. They advised us to contact the police and this time the boys were charged. We are still waiting to go to court. 

Unbelievably, one of the boys continued to be racist to Tola almost every day on the school bus, with the bus driver turning a blind eye. He even went on to throw a pair of scissors at her in class. The school investigated the incident, but concluded they would be taking no further action. He had denied doing it and there were no witnesses, despite it happening in front of some 20+ children. Did my daughter have to be stabbed in class before her complaints would be taken seriously? 

I am so proud of my little girl and the young woman she is becoming. She is intelligent, beautiful, kind and beginning to understand people. She continued to go to school every day, even though barely anyone spoke to her because she had reported her racism. My daughter has learned some very hard lessons in the past couple of years and I am deeply proud of her. She still has times when she cries and finds it hard to understand why people are “so mean”. She doesn’t really trust many white people and says she will never date a white boy. She is only 15. This is heart-breaking for me, but I understand it. This is how a person of colour is made to feel because of their experiences in our society. 

In March 2020 we went into lockdown due to Coronavirus and Tola got a ‘break’ from school. She became inspired by Black Lives Matter and her brother is proud of her for using her social media to try to spread awareness of the racial discrimination that goes on in our world, in order to educate others. She has quite a few ‘followers’, whatever that means, but she has also lost a lot. Sadly, they’ve all been white. 

“They find it hard to accept the truths about racism and its existence.”

Tola is now being home-schooled. She will sit her GCSEs in the summer of 2021 and is looking forward to starting her A levels at a college in England. 

Copyright Olukemi Ogunyemi 2021. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author. Nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published any without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.