Racial Discrimination in the Czech Republic-Part 2

Walking across the bridge like he always does, Kuba was late for school again. It doesn’t really matter though because no one cares whether he goes to school or not. He gets to school, and walks through the doors with a sign reading zvlastni skola, or special education. He had always been a pretty good student at his last school, and his grades weren’t terrible. Yeah he did joke around with the guys and didn’t always fully listen to the teacher, but what 8th grader does? His teachers had low expectations of him because he was Roma and they told him often that his brain was actually smaller than white children’s. So he started believing that, and not working as hard. His parents expected him to fail because neither of them had made it passed 8th grade. They told him not to have such high expectations of himself, and not to sweat getting bad grades sometimes. If people were going to make fun of him for trying, than why should he? So he started doing less and less work, and slacking off more and more. Yet his elementary school moved him to this school with no explanation except a note saying why he needed special help. The note said he had “Heavy behavioral problems” and that he was “out of control” and “impossible to work with”. But in reality, they just didn’t want Roma in their school. They were all being segregated into these special schools. So now he was at a school for mentally handicapped and people with serious learning problems, such as dyslexia or ADD.

He kicked rocks around for a few minutes outside before going in to school, then went in and took his usual seat next to Marek. Marek was also Roma, and at that school for the same reason as Kuba. Actually most of the class was made up of Roma with “behavioral problems”. The rest of them were white kids with Autism, and one with Tourette syndrome. They were the ones that got the most attention, which still wasn’t much. The teacher sat at her desk, drinking her coffee, sighing in deeply, and rolling her eyes at the ceiling. Kuba couldn’t stand her; he couldn’t do anything, not even ask a seatmate for a pencil, without getting yelled at. And then if he did something worse, like ask to use the bathroom, he would have to stay after school and do extra work. They were all about keeping bad kids in line here.
The teacher finally stood up and called attendance, but since half the kids never answered anyway there was no real point to it. Then the teacher had them do puzzles, which were supposed to help their concentration, which was believed to be a big part of behavioral problems. The theory was if the kids can focus on one thing for a long time with no breaks than they would not get distracted and “disobey”.

Kuba started on his puzzle, and quickly got bored. This, of course to the teachers here, just proved that they were right, that he needed help. Many of his Roma classmates rebelled against the way things were, but it didn’t do them any good. Every time they acted out, it was written down to prove that they needed help. Kuba didn’t see the point of acting out. He knew it would just make things worse. He was one of the best students in the class, yet the teachers would not acknowledge that. No way was a Roma boy going to be the smartest in the class. So they watched him extra closely, waiting for him to mess up.

At lunch time Kuba went to the cafeteria. Probably eighty five percent of the kids in that room were Roma. Then after lunch he was asked to meet with the school psychologist.
“Hello Kuba”, the psychiatrist said roughly, “take a seat”. He then took out the papers with the teachers notes about him.
“I see you were causing a disturbance in class the other day, do you want to talk about it?”
“No”, Kuba said dryly.
“Well it seems you were making fun of the teacher in front of her class”.
“Actually I was correcting her, because she’s not teaching us anything”
“I see, and you don’t think that’s mocking?”
“No, it’s pointing out the facts”.
“Now I know you can’t help a lot of what you do, being from the family you come from, but that’s no excuse.” The man then said.
“It’s a scientifically proven fact that your brain is smaller than the average white Czech male your age, so I’d say you have no right correcting anyone.”
Kuba had argued this a thousand times. He had argued about Roma brain’s vs. Czech brains and it just got him in trouble, and the thing was he was starting to believe it. There’s only so much a person can take of lies before he starts believing them.
At that moment something snapped in him, he had had enough.
“Fine” He replied.
“Okay so we’re in agreement” the man said.

Kuba left his office, and stomped through the halls to his classroom. He slammed the door behind him as he came into the room. He sat down again and just glared at the teacher. She was looking at him out of the corner of her eye, and her hand slowly moved over to her paper, putting little marks by his name. That was it; he stood up and grabbed the paper from her desk, and ripped it into pieces. She grabbed his arm, but he was too strong for her and pulled away, almost knocking her down.
He ran out, her cries behind him yelling “Kuba! Get back here!”

But after he was off the school property, she seemed to forget about it and go back to class as if nothing had happened, her face red.
He ran home and stomped to his room, and slammed the door.
His mother yelled “what are you doing at home? Have you given up on school?”
He came down later and told her what had happened, and she just stared at him blankly.

“Then why go?” she asked. “Just stay home.”
“I am” he replied.
“Good” You’ve finally realized that in our family, no one succeeds.”

Racial Discrimination in the Czech Republic-by guest author

Today's blog post is written by a guest author, Amy, my daughter who graduates from high school in two days. Her final exam in World Literature class was to write something that addressed a problem and could bring about change. She picked racial discrimination in the Czech Republic.

Note from Amy: This is meant to be maybe a magazine article, that partly had someone go and watch these things happen to these two people, but mostly looking at it from the characters point of view. It was written to draw awareness to the problem of racial discrimination in the Czech Republic. I think by telling this story from people’s point of view instead of just telling facts will help readers relate to the people in the stories and understand the situations theses people go through better. Both of these stories are based on real life stories similar to them.

She wakes up to the chill of wind blowing through the cracks. Fall is coming, and it’s almost time to move. The government gave her three weeks to get out, before they demolished her house. House is a relative term for what it was. The government knew it wasn’t a real house, it was a shack that was falling apart and could collapse any day. They wanted that land for a strip mall, and this way they’d be doing good for people too, getting them out of that dangerous situation. But they only cared about the strip mall. They didn’t offer her any other housing, nor did they give her any idea where she might be able to live.

“What is that banging?” Tereza thought, as she drowsily pulled herself out of bed. They were here. They barged in, and started shouting.

“What are you doing in bed? Why are your things not packed up?” They peppered her with questions. She shrugged her shoulders. She knew they were coming and she was refusing to move.

They started throwing things outside and yelling at her to hurry. It was 8:05 and they were supposed to have the shack demolished within half an hour.

By now her baby was awake and screaming, but they didn’t want her to attend to him, they wanted her to help them.

She pulled at her things, and even pounded one of the workers on the back, tears streaming down her face, but it did no good. A social worker sent over to make things official was calmly telling her it was going to be ok, trying to get her to calm down. But it did nothing, because she knew this woman wasn’t going to give her any help beyond telling her everything was fine.

“How will it be fine? What are you going to do for me?” she yelled.

“Now we’ll try to give you a little money so you can buy yourself some good food hmm?” the other woman replied, with a big smile.

“That’ll do a lot of good” Tereza thought.

She was getting frantic now. Everything she owned, which wasn’t much, was now quickly being moved to the back of a truck. They had to get everything away from the demolition site.

She was sitting on the floor wailing, with her baby in her arms. The social worker was trying to hold the baby but she pushed her away.

When everything was out, everyone stopped for a moment to look at Tereza sobbing, as if this shack was a castle to her. They knew what they were doing was wrong, but they told themselves it was better for her too, to not be in such horrible living conditions. But they didn’t think through that maybe not having anywhere to stay was worse.

Two workers eventually came over and pulled her up by her arms, and the social worker took the baby. They put a piece of paper in front of her and told her to sign. She refused, but the other woman said that she would not get any money if she did not sign.

So she did, with trembling hands, and then she stepped back, stepped back to watch her home get demolished to the ground.

The social worker asked her if she had any family, and although Tereza had a sister, she said no. Her sister had eight children and did not need two more mouths to feed.

She was dropped off at a hostel, and given money to pay for the night, but not much else.

“Now things will get better, I’ll work on getting you a new home, the government will help you”, the social worker said, but Tereza knew that was a lie. The government would see this case, see she was Roma, and drop it to the bottom of the list, and after a few months of trying, she knew the woman would give up. Her pay wasn’t high enough to bother with cases that don’t get anywhere, and no one cared about the Roma.

Refugees-Part 4: The Church: Hope for refugees

Guest author Sam Tabiendo has submitted this story of hope. Sam, a fellow ReachGlobal missionary working in Spain, and I are both ReachGlobal contacts for the Refugee Highway Partnership in Europe. This is a story he wrote for his personal prayer letter. (NOTE: This photo is not of Sam or Patrick.)

MINISTRY TO REFUGEES

Can you imagine teaching the Word and getting thrown in jail? You're told that the bribe from your spouse just got you released and you better flee the country while you have life. A short time later, you are in a new country, foreign language, loved ones far away, you are homeless and penniless. I was in London at a conference regarding refugees in Europe. My first night there, I dined next to Patrick from Africa. This was his story five years ago. Patrick received asylum, has adapted, and has been living as a boarding home advisor with British juvenile delinquents, helping them make transitions back to the world. At the end of their term, these tough white guys are weeping as they say farewell to Patrick, who to them was closer than a father or brother. Yet it has been 5+ years apart from his family while I was whining about being 4 days away from mine. Patrick is one among over 1,500,000 refugees in Europe, not all for the cause of Christ, but the Lord has sovereignly brought them here. Whether they came legally or illegally, they all need Jesus. What are we, the Church who are also "strangers in a strange land" to do? This refugee conference offered hopeful answers to this issue. the church has an opportunity to fulfill what the Lord has taught (Mt 25:35) and yes, this is a controversial topic amongst Christians. ReachGlobal has begun a ministry with Refugee Highway Partnership to help reach the aliens.

Towards the end of our dinner, Patrick beamed about nearly saving up the money in hopes of bringing his family here within the next year. They are refugees themselves, "safely" in hiding in another African country. (....and I was whining to myself about being away from my family at this conference for five days.)