Race, Prejudice Discussion Hits Home a Week After Canyon High Stabbing

A week after a classmate was stabbed on campus in what some have characterized as a racial dispute, students at Canyon High School gathered to discuss the touchy topics of race and prejudice.

Kate Munson, a 15-year-old sophomore, seemed to sum up their conclusions. “Sometimes,” she sighed, “I feel the kids are handling this situation better than the parents.”

Indeed, the reaction of some parents to last Friday’s stabbing--and their failure to listen to their children’s explanations of the incident--was the major frustration voiced by 50 students during the Multicultural Caucus, a workshop aimed at breaking down stereotypes and promoting racial sensitivity.

The students chosen to attend the workshop were handpicked by teachers to represent most racial, ethnic, religious and social groups on campus--from Latinos to Koreans, jocks to drama club members, Mormons to Seventh-day Adventists.

The four-hour workshop had been planned for months, said Gary Mast, a social studies teacher who organized the event. But in light of the stabbing, “it couldn’t be a more opportune time to do it,” he said.

Pat Butterfield was stabbed in the abdomen and hand last Friday after he argued with another 16-year-old student, who was charged this week with attempted murder. That student is now being held at Sylmar Juvenile Hall. Two other students, accused of assault with a deadly weapon, also were arrested in the incident.

School administrators said the stabbing was the result of a personal conflict between Butterfield and the other students. Most students at the workshop supported that description of the incident.

But some parents and students said this week that the attack was prompted by simmering tensions between white and Latino students. Butterfield’s accused attackers are Latino.

Some students expressed disappointment Friday with parents who used the incident as a springboard for venting hatred.

“I heard one of the parents picking up their kids say, ‘Why are they here? Why don’t they go back to their country?’ about a group of Mexican kids,” said Christina Pullido, 17. “It hurts me to see parents do this. It’s so gross.”

Students also said they were appalled by a small group of vocal and angry parents who dominated a Tuesday night meeting held to discuss the incident.

“The meeting was a joke,” said Anthony Arjoon, a senior who attended the meeting. “The parents were acting so immature. They were cursing and yelling. It’s no wonder their kids act the way they do.”

This was the fifth workshop dealing with race relations at Canyon in three years. Besides a group discussion Friday, drama students performed skits illustrating prejudice. In one scene, a girl was asked to attend a bar mitzvah by a boy she had been longing to date. Her father forbade her to go on the date because the boy was Jewish.

Many students said the workshop’s lessons hit close to home. “It surprised me how many races and cultures had the same problems as I did growing up,” said Phillip Thompson, 18.

The students had their own stories to share.

Norma Gonzalez, 16, saying she didn’t fit in at a predominantly white junior high school, told how she once bought blond wigs and tried to whiten her skin with bleach. “I was trying to change the color of my skin and who I am,” she said.

Some students smiled and nodded sympathetically.

Another 16-year-old girl angrily told of her own experience with prejudice--at home.

“My father is an example of a bigot,” she said. “My brother is a younger version of my father. It just goes down the generations.”