Unfair consequence, a stand for our voice.

Hey, this message is regarding the incident i and a few of my friends have been involved in. A tiktok video was published publicly by accident and deeply offended the community and some staff at KDC. Although we have tried to find a middleground for a consequence for us with the school, they instead took away our graduation. They are generalising us to the student who came in black face, which we strictly said we had no relation to or knowledge of his doings. We did not have the intention to offend anyone at all, and we deeply regret our actions. But we do consider this unfair to put us in the same boat as the student who came in black face, as we had nothing to do with it.

We deeply regret our actions and apologise to those offended by our comments. But regarding the process of giving our consequence, the school did not allow a second meeting to get our parents views on the issue atleast. They were originally meant to take away Big Day Out, but due to the cancellation instead took away graduation. Both events are no where near the same, one day on the beach opposed to 13 years of schooling. Taking away one social event will not allow us to learn and grow as people, rather we suggested to work with the schools wellbeing center or any programs that address racism and homophobia, but we were quickly shutdown.

We do know that our actions are not accepted, but there are better consequences to be given. I am calling on you as part of the KDC community to support us in a fair consequence for our actions. If you do not that is fine we understand that we did cause damage to not only the schools image but to the community too. But to go from taking away Big Day Out, and not allowing us to appeal the decision atleast, not even shining light into the situation for our parents to say, shows that the values at KDC are not being upheald by the school itself. They have excluded us and not allowing us to fight for a better outcome and not respecting our student voice as they have been avoidant. We sent in a statement and arguement directly to the principle, but they have not even acknowledged it at all. 

They say we do not condone racism and homophobia, but many times i have heard worse comments in the school yard, yet nothing is being done. They claim to be about respect and inclusivity, but arent respecting our voices to be heard, and excluding us from an event where we can bond with students around us one last time. They arent even allowing us to do an apology to the school, because they dont want to shine light on the issue on staff and students who dont know about the issue. But by us doing so this allows students and staff to know the consequence and to learn from our mistake, that this behaviour is not condoned ever. This is would also reduce the liklihood of this to occur again in the future. But they would rather keep the KDC community in the dark and let this behaviour continue, and they still dont address this issue directly in school.

We want to clearly state that the black face incident and the tiktok was two completely different issues, but we are being given the same consequence as the student who came in black face. We do NOT have any relation to him, we did not have any knowledge or even encourage him to do what he did. One is blatant racism and the other is a mistake that was misinterpreted and we deeply regret our action.

We simply ask if you can support us to give is a better consequence that will allow us to learn without putting such burden on us and our families in not coming to graduation. 13 years of schooling gone to waste. We are not gaining any benefit from it.

Ahmed Ilham Mohamed Imtiyaz    Contact the author of the petition