By Ritu Marwah. Indian Currents
The noose, a symbol of racism and hatred, with deep roots in segregation, sends a deliberate message of exclusion.
Symbols of racism in the schoolyard
On November 15, 2022, the Saratoga-Campbell community was shocked to learn that colored dolls were discovered hanging on nooses around the neck in the schoolyards of three public schools: Redwood Middle, Prospect High, and Saratoga High.
“When we returned to school on Monday, we didn’t see anything. We learned about the incident through a memo sent by the administration,” Arshi Chawla, a member of Saratoga High’s Anti-Racism Task Force, told India Currents. The incident occurred on a Friday night — November 11 — and schools informed students after the weekend.
(Image courtesy of: Ritu Marwah)
“We know where it happened. I saw a group of people gathered around a ladder leaning outside Ms. Kramer’s classroom,” said Raghav, a student at Redwood High School, describing the scene in which a dark-skinned doll was hanging, its head on a noose.
racism is not a joke
At his school, Raghav said, students had cowered in their classrooms with awkward smiles and an air of indifference. They tried to play it off as a rude joke.
"Just like when a student is rude to a teacher and you know it's not funny, but you still laugh at it like it's a joke," he said.
“We don’t talk about it.” Raghav seemed embarrassed when asked about the reaction of the only black student in his grade. “We’re not going to ask him about it. It’s too personal.” He shrugged off the incident. “I’ve never experienced hate. This is SARATOGA! We have a mixed culture here.”
At Redwood Middle, another student, Allison, said her parents were worried, wondering, "How far will they go?"
The school administration was quick to react.
“A noose is a reprehensible symbol of hate and violence,” Saratoga Union School District Superintendent Ken Geisick said in a statement released immediately on Nov. 16. Authorities have launched a hate crime investigation. The sheriff’s office described the incidents as “heinous acts” and that they are taking these cases seriously.
A diverse school district
In the diverse South Bay community of Saratoga, where the median income is $200,000 and the median home price is $2 million, 43 percent of the population is foreign-born.
Residences located in Saratoga feed into two high schools: Saratoga High and Los Gatos High. Saratoga High is over 60 percent Asian and Los Gatos High is over 60 percent white. Redwood Middle feeds into Saratoga High. Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District is ranked among the top three school districts in California by Niche.
Why parents remained silent
While staff, students and school authorities openly condemned the incident, Saratoga parents were unexpectedly silent.
“At Redwood Middle School, a pre-planned parents’ meeting – before the noose doll incident – suddenly saw parents not attending after the incident. The issue was not discussed,” Chani Modi, president of PTA Redwood Middle School, told India Currents.
“Maybe they think there is little they can do about the incident,” Modi surmised. Though several Asian parents had called Modi to discuss another issue — the resignation of music teachers — when it came to racism on campus, parents at the school were strangely reticent.
“My mother saw the school email about the incident. She asked me about it and then raised her eyebrows with a disappointed look,” said Raunak, a seventh-grader at Redwood Middle.
Kaasha Minocha, a former news/entertainment editor for Saratoga’s school news magazine Falcon, explained that parental apathy may stem from a lack of understanding of the symbolism of a noose. Perhaps many immigrant parents cannot fully comprehend the pain associated with the “n” word, a homophobic slur or threat of lynching. In their newly adopted nation, they may be dissociated from the history of pain that generations of Americans have internalized.
“In most cases, students understand the symbolism of a noose better than our parents do because we have read about it and our curriculum exposes us to Black history, including slavery, Jim Crow laws and segregation in the 1950s and 1960s,” said Minocha, who graduates in 2022.
lack of understanding
“My mom doesn’t understand the issue. I mean she knows it’s bad, but she doesn’t understand the problem,” said a high school student who speaks Mandarin at home. “She’s not from here. She didn’t grow up in the United States.”
“My parents? Oh, my parents didn’t understand the gravity of the whole incident. My parents grew up in India. They’re not exposed to everything that we’re exposed to in school in regards to black history,” said Shreya Rallabandi, a member of Saratoga High’s Anti-Racism Task Force.
Immigrant families on their way to achieving the American dream may perceive and interpret racist acts differently than their own children, who learn about racism and segregation in school. Among Indian families, racism is often a taboo topic. So for them, acknowledging a racist incident may mean admitting the shame that their first-generation children remain outsiders in their new homeland, despite their parents’ economic success.
Who are the culprits?
The perpetrators were caught on the school’s closed-circuit television, NBC reported. “Surveillance photos show what the district is calling two persons of interest.” Photographs of the suspects were shared by the school and in an article on Nextdoor, a community news app.
“Hanging a dark-skinned doll from a noose does not equate to ‘nasty.’ That equates to a hate crime,” Rebecca Andreasen told her neighbors on Nextdoor.
“This is shocking and terrible,” responded Carmen Tan Miller, another resident.
“No one has come forward to identify the suspects. I don’t know why these schools were targeted or if it was an inappropriate prank, but it really shocked our community as any form of racism and hate has no place in our schools or in our community,” said Tanya De la Cruz, the district’s first public information officer (PIO), a position created this year by the school district to improve communication with the community.
Racism spits on social media
Students at Bay Area schools took action in response to the racist venom that exploded online in the wake of George Floyd's death and the BLM movement that followed.
Four Saratoga High students formed the school's first anti-racism task force to raise awareness and address hate speech flooding social media.
At Los Gatos High, El Gato News reported on the appearance of the KKK “Los Gatos chapter” on Instagram promoting “Stop White Genocide!”
“An account with the username @lghskoolkidsklub ‒Los Gatos High School KKK‒ appeared on Instagram,” El Gato News warned. The report identified actively circulating links to other schools, such as @whskoolkidsklub ‒Wilcox High School KKK‒, @harkerkoolkidsklub ‒Harker KKK‒, and @shskoolkidsklub ‒Saratoga High School KKK‒.
The Instagram post invited students “to attend a “KKK Rally,” El Gato News reported. It included a threat that read: “This is not a joke. If those animals want a race war, the side with guns will obviously win[,] and you can guess which side they’re on haha. It’s starting soon… be prepared.”
The private account, which has since been deleted, was one of several other “KKK” pages targeting Bay Area students.
encounters with racism
Hate crimes continue to occur in the Saratoga School District.
On November 1, 2021, EL Gato News reported that surveillance cameras caught three different groups painting hateful, racist, anti-Semitic, and homophobic slurs on the walls of Los Gatos High, smashing pumpkins, and then filming their work with their cell phones.
Los Gatos High chemistry teacher Ken Porush was one of the victims of the hate crime. He told the Saratoga Falcon that he believes these incidents reflect a larger problem that transcends the campus grounds into the community at large.
According to Mercury News, Los Gatos Mayor Marico Sayoc, a woman of color, faced aggressive verbal attacks from an anti-vaccine and anti-LGBTQ group that identified themselves as supporters of former President Donald Trump.
In a cellphone video, the mayor was told: “We don’t want you here. You need to get out of this town.”
Racism has no place in the community
In a statement to the California Legislature, Assemblyman Evan Low condemned the attacks and said hate has no place in the community.
“Harassment, bullying, and intimidation at public meetings are absolutely unacceptable on their own, but we were horrified to learn that the Mayor, the only person of color on the City Council, and her family have also been targeted outside of Town property. This is especially alarming in light of the rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders during the pandemic.”
A symbol of exclusion
Dana Henderson, who was born and raised in Saratoga, said on Nextdoor that she saw it coming.
"I saw the demographic changes over the last few decades and thought it was going to happen sooner or later as the right unleashes the worst part of society."
But that malevolence, Rallabandi said, reveals itself in more complex and quiet ways at his school.
"You won't find explicit hate crimes or physical violence. The reality is that the way racism manifests itself in the community is very quiet."
The noose, a symbol of racial hatred with deep roots in segregation, sends a deliberate message of exclusion, Wendell Stemley, director emeritus of the National Minority Contractors Association, told the Post after nooses were found at construction sites.
"The rope's mission is not to say 'I'm going to hang you at mealtime.'"
"The rope's mission is to exclude you."
You can read the original note by clicking here
This publication was supported in whole or part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library.
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