Escalating threats to mixed 8th grader
JC
Angelina Weimann is another mixed adolescent who is having to face violence and threats from her classmates. It escalated to the point that her mom had to remove her from the school to ensure her safety. The Denver Post reports:
Katrina Weimann, who is white, said she enrolled her 13-year-old daughter, Angelina, in Mesa County Valley School District 51 this year after the family moved back to Colorado from Kansas. Shortly afterward, Angelina, whose biological father is black, became the target of racial slurs, said Weimann, an Aspen native. Angelina said one boy threw a rock at her after a volleyball practice, then called her a racial slur when she told him to stop.
The last incident occurred Dec. 5, when a student told her: “I’m going to hang you from a tree,” Angelina said. At that, her mother removed her from Fruita Middle School, the town’s only middle school. Fruita Police Chief Mark Angelo said Tuesday that the department is “working on an ethnic-intimidation case involving an African-American female.”
On Dec. 5, “more than one student harassed the female victim by saying words that placed her in fear of possible bodily injury,” he confirmed. “It had to do with the person’s actual or perceived race and color.”
Interesting language used by the police chief here….that she is recognized as an African-American female, but then the phrase “actual or perceived race and color” is used. It implies that there is probably something going on that is the result of her being mixed, but it isn’t quite being addressed.
Stories like this just make it so obvious that more education about race/ethnicity and identity need to come into our schools. Kids are constantly acting out this kind of senseless violence which they are most probably taught by parents, relatives, the media, etc. And I’m not so sure how much these incidents really become learning lessons. It’s unclear whether the school’s administration adequately addresses these situations. So these become very bad lessons: harass students of color, make death threats to them…what happens? They leave. And no punishment to the harassers.
Horrible. 
Dave wrote:
Thanks for shining a spotlight on this, JC & MMW.
Posted 22 Dec 2005 at 12:04 pm ¶
Nina wrote:
The kid told her: “I’m going to hang you from a tree,” clearly a reference to lynching and clearly a sign that the idiot perceived her as black, which means this is not a “mixed” issue.
Mixed or not, the girl looks black and she was insulted as “black”.
Posted 22 Dec 2005 at 1:45 pm ¶
mulatto wrote:
she is mixedrace how can she look black when she looks likes a lightskinned person,you can`t be a dark person in a lighter body.
Posted 23 Dec 2005 at 11:18 am ¶
Lyonside wrote:
OK, mulatto, but the photo above shows someone who many Americans (white, black, and other groups) would see as African-American. Her hair texture and skin tone are within the range of many people who self-identify as solely African-American.
I don’t think the important thing is that the child self-identifies as mixed - the point is that she is being targeted racially and is the victim of racial hatred. A racist doesn’t care WHAT she is mixed with, all they care about is that she is not “like them.” However she self-identifies, the police and schools should be treating this very seriously and the same way they would treat any ethnic intimidation. Both of which seem to have dropped the ball.
Posted 23 Dec 2005 at 2:38 pm ¶
mulatto wrote:
yah but what you are saying is lighter skinned people are dark people in a lighter body we are not that ,we have own look and its mixed
Posted 23 Dec 2005 at 6:30 pm ¶
mulatto wrote:
this like the king tut thing blacks want lighter skinned people to say there black put they dont want king tut to be lightskinned or even look white.
Posted 23 Dec 2005 at 6:34 pm ¶
Damie wrote:
There is no exact multiracial look, they come in varying pheno-types and complexions, even among siblings. A segment of black-identifying people are actually mixed.
Posted 24 Dec 2005 at 1:20 am ¶
Lyonside wrote:
Mulatto:
>what you are saying is lighter skinned people are dark people in a lighter >body we are not that ,we have own look and its mixed
No, that is NOT what I am saying. But I also STRONGLY agree w/ Damie. “Mixed” people, and by that I’m assuming you only count first-generation white/black people in your comments, can and DO look like any variety of combinations.
http://waynesword.palomar.edu/lmexer5.htm
Sheesh. You need to meet more “mulattos.” We can look like either parent or neither parent, depending on the expression of the particular genotype. We do NOT all look alike or have the same features.
Posted 24 Dec 2005 at 5:13 pm ¶
mulatto wrote:
iam talking about lighter skined people not dark people.
Posted 26 Dec 2005 at 8:12 am ¶
Lyonside wrote:
>iam talking about lighter skined people not dark people.
So, you differentiate based on how the child looks as to whether you woudl call them mixed?
wow. I recommend looking up that link I posted earlier, and then looking into hair texture and color genetics as well. It’s not either/or and absolutes. There is no one mixed look, and that is what I most opbject to in your comments thus far (the ones I understand, anyway).
Enough about lighter/darker skins already!
Posted 27 Dec 2005 at 3:57 pm ¶
Damie wrote:
“mulatto” has a obvious shortage of erudition.
Posted 27 Dec 2005 at 9:38 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
There are a lot of people who think the same as “mulatto” and use much higher language to disguise/confuse the issues. I’d rather put as much information and counterarguments out there as possible
Posted 28 Dec 2005 at 9:06 am ¶
sigrid wrote:
The issue of skin color got handled well here but I’ll put in my two cents anyway.
I don’t like seeing mixed people putting limits on who can be in our group - that seems like such an un-mixed thing to do
Growing up white/black mixed in the US I often felt rejected by both white and black people. That is bad enough, but being rejected by other mixed people is such a denial of identity.
An anecdote: People constantly tell me I look like Lisa Bonet (who may qualify as looking “typically” white/black mixed? I really don’t care but am telling this story to point out how ridiculous the notion is), as an insecure 12 year old in my middle school’s gym locker room a white girl compared me and another white/black mixed girl. The white girl decided that since the other mixed girl had straight hair and thinner lips than me eventhough she was darker (this really happened!) the white girl declared that the other mixed girl was mixed and I was black. I didn’t care what the white girl thought but the mixed girl agreed - it was horrible. Let’s not do this to this poor girl!
Posted 29 Dec 2005 at 2:45 pm ¶
yeah wrote:
mulatto does not want to deal with the social realities of American society. Regardless of one’s ethniic background or pheneotype, if you are perceived as black, you will face the racial discrimination that African-Americans have faced throughout history. The former NBA player, Charles Barkley has “light” skin, but I don’t think anyone would classify him as a mulatto. Both of his parents are black/black identified. Mulatto, and people like her/him are too color conscious. Not all African-Americans are actually black in color, or dark in color. Their “lightness,” if you will, does not negate their affinity for African-American culture thereby making them “black” identified.
Posted 12 Jan 2006 at 2:03 pm ¶
sarah wrote:
wowzers
Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 7:27 pm ¶
kiki wrote:
Mulatto what are you talking about saying ”yah but what you are saying is lighter skinned people are dark people in a lighter body we are not that ,we have own look and its mixed” You don’t have to be light skinned to be a biracial,I’m fully african american,and i used to be way lighter than Angelina Weimann,but it didnt make me biracial ,but im darker complexion now,my point is you can be dark as night or white as snow and be of mixed race,when I see Angelina I don’t see a white teen girl but
a black one or one of mixed race.
Posted 13 Feb 2006 at 4:00 pm ¶
whitechocolate wrote:
I’m sure that at least some of the kids making these slurs knew this little girl was mixed w/ a white momma. She is mixed race which means she is perceived by different people in different ways regardless of how she perceives herself. However the bigger issue is that these little haters basically got away w/ doing this and Angelica was the one punished (once again) by having to leave her school and the school life she had there. So she is victimized not once but twice and the perpetrators get off scot-free. Sounds like a lot of people tap danced around the real problem of prejudice and fixing it. This sucks.
Posted 15 Apr 2006 at 5:46 pm ¶