I was suspended from secondary school from two days for calling a teacher racist. It only just occurred to me now that rather than have a conversation about why I thought the teacher was racist, the school suspended me.

I got internally suspended for two days in a separate incident for facing down a teacher around something stupid. This was the same teacher (my form teacher) who told us all in a citizenship lesson that it felt like "them" (Black and Asian) people were taking over the country.

I wasn't an angel in school. I was mouthy and self-righteous and often took on the battles of my classmates unasked lol. But I remember that it was these two encounters with these two openly racist teachers which saw me get suspended.

Other teachers just dealt with me accordingly. There was one teacher who used to regularly give me detention for answering back (looking back, probably justified) but he never sought to exclude me. But these two racist witches wanted me out of school.

Then I remember after my GCSE results, another racist teacher (who told a mixed race classmate, "You might think you're some ghetto bitch around your neighbourhood, but I'm the biggest bitch around here.") told me that she hoped I had lined up a college to go to because I was not

welcome to stay on for 6th Form. I told her I had already been accepted. She said "Good." When my headteacher heard that I hadn't even bothered to apply for my very prestigious school for 6th form she pulled me in for a meeting asking me why. (I got 11 GCSEs, all A*s or As)

I told her to her face that the other teacher told me I wasn't allowed to. All she said was, "Well...I'm sure that's not the case." Nothing further was said. Every single teacher I've mentioned continued to teach at the school. And it's only now that I'm deeping how WILD that is.

Anyway. Just came here to blurt all that out. Just finished Chapter 9 of Natives, which has got me reflecting on all of this.