Here's Why This 11-Year-Old Knew Exactly What To Do When He Was Called The N-Word
Today my 11 year old son was called n-gger at school. As a parent you wish you can protect your children forever, but it is inevitable that it will happen. In response to the word, Johnny, who is a gifted student, asked the child to apologize for saying this to him.
— Celina Caesar-Chavannes (@iamcelinacc) February 20, 2020
On Tuesday, Johnny Caesar-Chavannes, 11, was building a snow fort with his friends at school, as is the tradition for February’s winter weather.
The following morning, he found it destroyed. Someone had kicked the fort to pieces, and his friends had witnessed the demolition.
Minutes later, something happened. “The kid who broke it just ran right past us and yelled, ‘Have fun with your fort, n*****,’” Johnny, who is in the sixth grade at Jack Miner Public School in Whitby, ON, told HuffPost Canada over the phone.
Johnny responded calmly: he asked the kid to apologize. When the boy refused and proceeded to curse at him again, Johnny reported the incident to the school, and the boy, who was white, was promptly suspended.
“I knew that the kid would have pretty bad consequences,” Johnny said, “and I knew that, if I had retaliated in an angry way, I would have had consequences that might have been worse than his.”
Watch: Black Canadians unpack the weight of the n-word. Story continues below.
That Johnny was able to stay calm is both a credit to his natural disposition and to his parents, who, long ago began preparing him for the racism they feel is inevitable in the lives of Black youth.
“You do all of these things to affirm your kids,” Johnny’s mother, Celina Caesar-Chavannes, told HuffPost Canada. “You tell them they’re brilliant, smart, talented, that their skin is beautiful. But somebody is going to come along and say something about how they look, and they need to be ready.”
Caesar-Chavannes, a former Liberal MP who has been outspoken and unequivocal on the state of race relations in Canada, shared a Twitter thread about...
