Tim Vandenack, Standard-Examiner

LAYTON — Racial bullying isn’t always overt, or in-your-face.

Sometimes it takes the form of offhand, insensitive, casual, charged remarks. When repeated over and over, it can take a toll — a big toll, according to Christine Torres, who says her sixth-grade daughter faces such treatment about her skin color and hair.

“She’ll either cry or get upset or isolate herself in her room,” Torres said.

Torres recently moved her kids from one Davis School District school in Layton to another, stemming from the racial bullying she says they faced, hoping for a less-charged environment. Both her daughter, Fatou Bah, 12, and her fourth-grade son, 10, have darker complexions stemming from their African and Puerto Rican roots.

Torres — who’s worked with school officials on the issue — also came forward with Fatou to get the story out to the public of what the girl faces, to personify the issue of race and racism in the classroom. She sees going public as a defensive and protective move, a way to try to control the situation which, she suspects, is found in school districts across the state.

Tim Vandenack, Standard-Examiner

“I refuse to have my daughter be another Izzy,” said Torres, referring to Izzy Tichenor, the 10-year-old North Salt Lake girl, Black and autistic, who died by suicide last November. Izzy’s mom has said her daughter faced bullying in the classroom.

‘OUT OF THE BLUE’

Fatou says the charged comments, while not necessarily a daily thing, happen too frequently. In the DSD schools she’s attended, there have been relatively large contingents of Hispanic students, but she’s been one of the few African-American kids.

“They just say it out of the blue,” she said.

She’s been called a “chocolate bar,” Fatou said, and some have razzed her about her hair, calling it “a bush and a tree and a rat’s nest.” One student once threatened to cut a short braid of her hair that jutted upward, maintaining that it blocked his vision.

Tim Vandenack, Standard-Examiner

“She’s been called the ‘N’ word,” said her mom.

“Many times,” Fatou added.

Fatou said students have even used her last name, Bah, to mock her. “Baa, baa black sheep,” they’ll sometimes say, borrowing from the nursery rhyme.

Fatou’s response varies. “I ignore it or I go tell the principal,” she said.

When she tells school officials, Fatou said, other students complain she’s a tattletale. School authorities, in her view, never seem to do too much to punish the perpetrators. They say they’ll take action “and they never talk to them.”

In the meantime, the resentment inside can build up. “When they continue to do it, that gets me mad, really mad,” she said.

Indeed, sometimes Fatou will lash out at other students when they bother her. That, however, only seems to make things worse.

“I’m the one that gets in trouble,” Fatou said. If she stands up for herself, she went on, “they get mad at me and say, ‘Don’t give me attitude.'”

Sometimes the anger, frustration and resentment bottles up inside of her until she comes home, when it can spill out, Torres said.

For Fatou, the solution, or at least part of it, would be for school officials to be more aggressive about taking action against offenders. “They should tell the kid, ‘You will knock it off or I will call your parents,'” she said.

‘A UTAH ISSUE’

Torres’ and Fatou’s decision to speak out comes as Davis School District deals with the aftermath of a U.S. Justice Department probe that found “serious and widespread racial harassment” of Black and Asian-American students in the system. Within the district, 81.7% of students are non-Hispanic whites while 18.3% of them are students of color, mainly Hispanic, according to state data for the 2021-2022 school year. Just 797 students, 1.1% of the district total, are Black.

Whatever the case, Torres maintains that the Davis School District isn’t alone in contending with such matters. “It’s a Utah issue,” she said.

At the same time, district officials have been pushing hard to address race issues. They’ve launched a video series throughout the district, “No More, Not Here,” to foster racial understanding, among other things. Last November, soon after the release of the U.S. Justice Department probe, the district hired an administrator, Jackie Thompson, who is Black, to focus on diversity and equity issues.

In fact, school officials don’t take race issues lightly, said Christopher Williams, spokesperson for the district. He can’t get into particulars of the case involving Fatou given privacy laws, but said, generally speaking, that such matters get rigorous attention.

“Every case requires hours and hours and hours of discussion. It isn’t just a cursory phone conversation. It is face-to-face, doing everything we can do,” he said.

The district, he went on, wants “our students to be successful” and officials are attentive to the “culture” that permeates the district. “It has to be a place of learning. It has to be a place of growth,” Williams said.

Racial comments, when brought to school officials’ attention, are taken seriously. Music played in locker rooms, he added, gets particular scrutiny as does chatter on the field among high school athletes, all in a bid to guard against racially charged content on school grounds and talk.

“It’s no longer is a case of we just let things go, we tolerate it,” Williams said.

Torres acknowledged the efforts of district officials to help her and her daughter, though the process can seem frustratingly slow. She displayed a text exchange on her phone with Thompson over district efforts to address her concerns.

Either way, Torres maintains that more can be done. The district should do more in the classroom to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January, to mark Black History Month in February. There should be more teachers of color so students like Fatou have role models in the classroom.

For now, Torres does what she can to stand by her daughter, to stand up for her, even when it sometimes feels like an impossible task. “I really don’t know where to turn,” she said.

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