Suzette Hackney

suzette.hackney@indystar.com

It should have been a day of glory and celebration for five fourth graders from Pleasant Run Elementary. They had just won a robotics challenge at Plainfield High School, and the students — new to bot competition this year — were one step closer to the Vex IQ State Championship.

Then racism got in the way.

For the record, their race or ethnicity shouldn’t be a part of this story. But it is. The team is made up of 9- and 10-year-olds, two who are African American and three who are Latino.

As the group — called the Pleasant Run Panther Bots — and their parents left the challenge last month, competing students from other Indianapolis-area schools and their parents were waiting for them in the parking lot. “Go back to Mexico!” two or three kids screamed at their brown-skin peers and their parents.

This verbal attack had spilled over from the gymnasium, where while the children were competing, one or two parents disparaged the Pleasant Run kids with racist comments — and loud enough for the Pleasant Run families to hear.

“They were pointing at us and saying that ‘Oh my God, they are champions of the city all because they are Mexican. They are Mexican and they are ruining our country,’” Diocelina Herrera, the mother of Panther Bot Angel Herrera-Sanchez, heard a woman say.

Because if you allow racism and hate to dictate these things, minority students from the Eastside, poor kids from a Title I school, aren’t supposed to be smart. They aren’t supposed to be talented. They aren’t supposed to be technologically savvy. And they definitely aren’t supposed to be able to best white students from surrounding communities.

“For the most part, the robotics world is kind of a white world,” Lisa Hopper, the team’s coach and a Pleasant Run second-grade teacher, told me. “They’re just not used to seeing a team like our kids. And they see us and they think we’re not going to be competition. Then we’re in first place the whole day and they can’t take it.”

Nearly 35 schools competed in the Feb. 2 robotics challenge. Plainfield High School was the host, but the participating elementary school teams came from more than 20 communities in and around Indianapolis. Hopper said her team and their parents were unable to identify the competing students and the parent who made the comments.

Plainfield officials condemned the hurtful comments. A district spokesperson did not know about the incident until I contacted her, but she said a letter would be sent to every participating school to reiterate district policies.

“We don’t condone that behavior; we don’t tolerate it in our schools,” Sabrina Kapp, director of communications for Plainfield Community School Corporation, said. “We talk a lot about community values here. That is simply not something that anybody associated with Plainfield schools would put up with.”

On Wednesday, Scott Olinger, superintendent of Plainfield Community School Corporation, released a statement: “The Plainfield Community School Corporation does not condone or tolerate language or behaviors that degrade others. Had our organizing team been made aware of the alleged behaviors by unknown adults on February 2nd, we would have taken immediate action.

We were pleased to host such an impressive array of young students, and we were equally proud of the teamwork, camaraderie, knowledge and fun that these children displayed. To learn now that adults may have acted in a way that distracted from the success of the day is disheartening. In the Plainfield schools, such behavior is unacceptable, regardless of whether it comes from adults or students.”

Yet, there is another part to this story, a pure beauty that exists because the Pleasant Run students refused to allow those ugly words to crush them. In fact, they’ve been emboldened by the hate. Three weeks after the incident, the Panther Bots won the Create Award — for best robot design and engineering — at the state championships, which qualified them for the Vex IQ World Championship next month in Louisville. They will compete with students from all over the world.

And they’ll walk in with confidence.

“They yelled out rude comments, and I think that they can talk all they want because at the end we’re still going to Worlds,” 10-year-old team leader Elijah Goodwin told me this week. “It’s not going to affect us at all. I’m not surprised because I’m used to this kind of behavior. When you have a really good team, people will treat you this way. And we do have a pretty good team.”

Hopper said she and her co-coach, after learning of the incident in Plainfield, gathered the team to see how they were handling it. They are resilient kids. They’re focused. They refuse to be victims.

“I was afraid they would let it get in their heads and wig them out,” Hopper said. “We sat down and talked to our kids, and obviously we let them share their feelings. They were on top of it already. They said: ‘We know they are mean. We know they were jealous. We’re not going to let it bother us.’ One of our guys said ‘to take stuff like that and let it make you stronger.’”

The Panther Bots, after all, know how to persevere. Just a few months ago, this team knew nothing about robotics. The low-income school was given a grant to develop a robotics program. Fourth grade teachers were asked to identify 10 students who had potential and exhibited leadership qualities. As a tryout, the students were asked to build something with Legos.

Elijah Goodwin, 10; Angel Herrera-Sanchez, 9; Jose Verastegui, 10; Manuel Mendez, 9; and Devilyn Bolyard, 9, were selected.

“I’m just so proud of them,” Hopper said. “The great thing about these five kids is they all ended up having strengths that elevated the team. They are dynamic individuals.”

I share in Hopper’s pride. I’m saddened that these children were subjected to racial prejudice, but I celebrate their ability to look past it. What’s disheartening, actually infuriating, are the parents who continue to exacerbate societal racism. They are teaching their children to become another generation of bigots. I can’t change that.

But I can cheer for the Panther Bots to rule Worlds.

Email IndyStar columnist Suzette Hackney at suzette.hackney@indystar.com. Follow her on Twitter: @suzyscribe.