Thread by @CoconutKelz

My entire career is a result of the racism experiences behind the gates of St Anne’s. I had witnessed and experienced it on a smaller scale at Redhill but racism truly took on its most elite form at this KZN boarding school. #wakeupstannes

One of the most disappointing things was constantly being told when I left school that I had “changed” because I chose to start speaking publicly about how problematic St Anne’s is, both from fellow pupils and staff that is enabled there.
#wakeupstannes

It’s so important then that all old girls read this document of some of the stories of the girls and women who’ve passed whose misty grounds and understand how intense and how much of our DAILY lives are permeated with macro and micro aggressions.
#wakeupstannes

St Anne’s was truly a personal hell for me - I felt like I was fighting racism every day- I got a reputation as the “angry black girl” because I wouldn’t let things go silently- and it was a personal hell for many others and we couldn’t wait to leave. #wakeupstannes

I can’t imagine how many girls feel like I did who are still there. It’s so important that this shift is happening and that white girls and women don’t take this as a chance to defend but instead listen & reflect on just how different our experiences were #wakeupstannes

Ask your black friends how life was for them at school. It’s one thing for the principal to say they will look at transformation policies & work on racial conversations and for those to actually happen given that they never did even with the promises made from my time & before.

More stories are still to come. From this school and many others.

Here’s the link: (bare in mind most of these young ladies matriculated in the last 5 years... the stories are still to come from many other years)

docs.google.com/document/d/1XA…

#wakeupstannes

Hair, representation of black bodies in the school and on the staff, uniform, sports and the creation of the horribly racist term “quotas”, “jokes”, prejudiced marking, being told to “get over it” when things happened at school, being told this is not a township or shebeen,

Being told when hanging out that we’re scaring the white girls, being told all we know is singing and dancing and we’re academically inferior, you not learning our names because they’re too hard but European/ Afrikaans names are fine... THE LIST GOES ON

As much as I want my kids to have the best education money can buy, I often wonder if that will be at the expense of her mental health dealing with institutional racism & protection of perpetrators & silencing of black students by threat of expulsion or punishment #wakeupstannes

Coming to a realization that what black kids experienced is actually emotional & mental abuse. Not just “bad experiences”... ABUSE. And how as adults we have to navigate with these early traumas & learn self-love/ acceptance only to then experience the same at work. Issa lot 😔💔