Elementary students from two of Amsterdam’s schools—many of them Turkish and Moroccan—took to the streets of their districts last month wearing white T-shirts with an appeal directed at their Caucasian neighbors: “Is this white enough for you?”
And on the backs of the shirts: “Integration is every child’s right.”
The students, along with teachers and parents, have launched a campaign to attract more white children to their schools. These campuses are known officially as “black” schools—a classification that, according to local news media, means more than 60 percent of the pupils are ethnic minorities with immigrant backgrounds. Children who fall under this classification, which also includes kids who aren’t of African descent, often grow up in disadvantaged households among family members who don’t speak the Dutch language.
The two schools involved in this campaign—Avonturijn and Catharina—are located in ethnically mixed neighborhoods. Yet the vast majority of their student populations (an estimated 90 percent) fall within that demographic, according to news reports. Amid the increasing racial imbalance, the schools have also seen enrollment drop, and the communities fear the campuses could be closed if they can’t boost the numbers of students attending them.
“When, for different reasons, a school ‘becomes blacker,’ it’s very difficult to reverse the trend,” Diane Middelkoop, a spokeswoman for the schools, told the global news agency AFP. “White children’s parents no longer want to be part of the school. I can understand that: We all want to feel at home and that means that we want to see people who share our origins and culture.”