ABSTRACT
Black children are faced with the problem of how to respond to racist harassment. One option is to try and ignore it. Black children wanting to call racial names back faced several problems. In some cases children could rely on the support of other children. This was often the case for younger children who had relatively institutionalized relations of protection with older children, often a sibling. The white children generally agreed with the school having a policy against racist name-calling, but their views differed about the justification for treating it more severely than other forms of name-calling. The apparent unfairness of the policy to some children arose most acutely over instances of black children calling white children racist names. The key notion in dealing with racist harassment is 'sticking up for our self'.
