Racist incidents spark uproar at Upland elementary school

A series of racist incidents at an Upland primary school have sparked outrage among parents, district officials said, after children reportedly attacked classmates with demeaning drawings.

The mother of a girl at Pepper Tree Elementary School said her daughter, who is black, received drawings with the messages “You are my favorite monkey” and “To my favorite cotton picker,” according to KTLA-TV Channel 5. obtained the images of the drawings . The mother has since pulled her daughter out of school, saying she continues to face harassment from classmates, KTLA reported.

Maylana and Rome Douglas, parents of three at the school, said their daughter was also targeted.

“They said they would give it to her [a drawing] who specifically said, ‘You are my favorite slave,’ and they wanted to show her as a slave hanging from a tree,” Maylana Douglas told KTLA.

In response, Upland School Board President Sherman Garnett said in a YouTube video uploaded Friday that “racially insensitive, unacceptable incidents” had occurred.

“We deeply regret the pain this behavior has caused our students, families and our community,” he said. “I want to make it clear that we have a strict zero-tolerance policy towards any kind of hate speech, harassment, discriminatory practices, behavior and racial slurs and all reports of these acts will be investigated thoroughly and promptly.”

The Upland Unified School District “will have no hesitation in taking disciplinary action in these situations,” Garnett said, without elaborating.

Robin Allen, President of the Pepper Tree PTA, said the association “stands firmly against racism in all forms and the culture of oppression that pervades the United States.”

“As an association representing all children, we must listen, educate and speak beyond rhetoric and rise up to right all inequalities and injustices,” he wrote in a social media post. “These recent incidents are not isolated incidents. We do not accept that at Pepper Tree.”