DS made racist comment at school

@Lentilweaver I'm not disagreeing with measured comments from brown MNers. Just the (unfortunately many) wild ones from people who make it extremely clear they think the incident was utterly trivial and/or show no care for the little girl and/or she deserved it. I haven't seen any comment like that from someone who also mentioned they weren't white.

She's part of problem because of her response to it. Racist things are said and down by people who are not inherently bad, all of the time. How you own and respond is key in those situations is key.

Something similar happened to me as well with my kid: the school and I agreed on what work we would do to follow it up (which did include sanction at school) and as I didn't have contact details for the other mum and don't see her at pick-up I asked the teacher to pass mine on so that I could apologise to her directly (my kid had already apologised to the kid). Ours didn't end up on WhatsApp. She was a bit younger than OP's DS at the time.

I think that you have to take into account how stuff like this lands as well as intention. I agree with the above posters that this doesn't mean that OP's son is a racist. Intention is relevant. But the other child has experienced a racist incident that is probably going to stay with her forever. The fact that the maker of the comments is a child and doesn't have any racist intent in the political sense doesn't mean that the other child isn't the victim of a racist incident. That's not reversible. I think that was the thing that I found the hardest about what my kid did. She and the other girl actually play together a lot now and their good relationship might counterbalance what happened but it can't blot it out.

I would speak to the school/head first thing tomorrow and make them aware of the adults watsapp group.
Kids say mean things to each other.
At 7 years old I don't think your son will understand why that comment is so unacceptable. You can only talk to him and explain. He's just a child and the adults need to remember that.

Knew/mortified

Bloody hell, are you for real 🙄
The mum is trying to sort this and support him and speak to the school about sorting this out,
OP ignore this type of unhelpful comment

Stfu. Why should Black/Brown skin children have to grow thick skin to put up with hate and racism from evil and uneducated people who most likely allow their children to live in racist households as they are so obsessed with others skin colour.

I know I would see the word ‘golliwog’ in here told in an innocent ‘omg I was portified’ way. This place attracts such a weird bunch obsessed with others.

Op, speak to the school and they will help you handle it. I hope the girl and your son are okay.

I find this quite strange as by that age he could have learnt some of the terminology behind racism. The name calling is quite available to children of that age which leads me to believe he actually doesn’t like brown skin in the way that some children don’t like ginger hair or disabilities. Have you asked him why rather than punishing him? You can’t punish a troubled thought out of a child’s mind. Surely you’d prefer him not to feel that way rather than get him to just shut down whenever he feels it?

Data protection? There's no school link, it's separate mum's who have separate group.

Data protection applies to institutions not individuals in their free time

The school can't implement rules in a separate private chat

I'd confront the vicious gossipmonger who has been stirring up hatred against a child in a group chat.

Seems to me there are massive data protection and confidentiality issues around this group. Time to suggest it gets wound up, or at the very least strict rules be put in place preventing identifying individual children?

Oh please shut up. She’s not part of the problem. She’s expressing that he’s not surrounded by white neo nazis so that can’t be the reason why he said it.

Its also pretty horrendous the amount of people calling the 7 year old girl a bully or implying she deserved it

The little girl who's only role in this has been to tell her mum what happened at school presumably

Yes maybe her parents have been out of line (without seeing the messages, who can say?) But it doesn't sound like she has done anything wrong here but people are adamant she should be understanding to him as he's the victim and she's bullying him

That little girl deserves to have it adressed

I'm not suggesting he's put in stocks or publicly lashed but previous posters have said she doesn't even deserve an apology

Yes but some disabilities can mean it isn’t necessarily about race. Eg if someone has profound learning disabilities and screams a racist word they have heard in public, does it mean they are racist? What about someone shouting out with Tourette’s. To separate the disability from this is just impossible as it is a very important factor in this situation.

A lot of us brown Mners are calling for restraint. Its not minimising. I just dont believe in shaming children, SEN or no.
Adults perhaps.

As opposed toe the power dynamic between presumably (based on OP description of said child's skin going brown in the sun) a white presenting boy and a brown girl. Yes, lets talk about intersectionality and power. The OP is feeling" really sick at the thought of walking my child into school tomorrow, knowing that most will be judging based on what they have heard". Lets ignore a 7 year old girl who might be feeling sick about going to school, the shops, the park, social media etc because she might be judged based on her skin colour. @Scattery

@DiddyRa This isn't about disability primarily, it's about race. And I say that as someone with severe disabilities and autism. Disability is not something to be used to distract from racism. Doing that is insulting to disabled people!

The main victim here is the child of colour who was humiliated by a racist comment, not OP's son, and yet so many mumsnetters are absolutely desperate to minimise her experience and claim that "all children do it" (no they don't) so as to refocus on making him the victim.

It's ridiculous. A racist incident occcured in school and while the perpetrator was very young and does have additional needs, trying to claim that no one has the right to discuss that and that it's tantamount to a lynching (um... what) is just a naked attempt to suppress people's natural anger and distress about racism. This is literally why MN has a reputation for being racist. The family affected has every right to be very angry and to discuss it with whom they choose.

It's not necessarily for me that it's not relevant
But that the response shouldn't be a laundry list of all the reasons why the girl has got it wrong

It needs an apology not a massive list of excuses however valid or not valid they are

The little girls experience is someone she considered a friend, asked her about her skin and then said they don't like brown skin and didn't play with her.

My autistic son at school touched a girl inappropriately at primary. He didn't understand why, but he still did it. The girls experience was still the same though.

We apologised, worked on it at home but didn't give the level of excuses that are happening on this thread

Sounds like he was just using that as an excuse not to play with her, without thinking how it sounds.

The situation became intersectional as soon as parents took it to Whatsapp and changed the power dynamic in the situation.

Exactly this. I'm so glad someone is thinking of this. So many posters don't seem to feel it's relevant at all.

Is the WhatsApp group parents? I had a situation where my DS repeated a racist joke he’d heard from another friend, the school rang me and I contacted the other parent directly to apologise and assure her it wouldn’t happen again.

Its also why people don't always immediately go to schools, or other parties parents to sort it out.

There's all sort of weird excuses on this thread. Lots of people saying it must have been misunderstood, he wouldn't have said it like that and outright accusing the girl of lying and that shes probably bullying him to deserve it. The mum has said that he has "friends of all ethnicities", pulled out a random relative, said they used to be friends.
When her own child has clearly said that he said to a girl with brown skin, that he didn't like brown skin, his mum still thinks it's all a big misunderstanding

As someone that's tried to raise clear racist incidents before, the pattern of "you must have got it wrong, that never happened at all and if theres proof then it must be out of context he's a good person, his mums best friend is black, you must have done something first" is absolutely a recognisable pattern

I can't say if something happened like this to my kid (Especially on a friday) that I wouldn't first speak to other mum friends. It wasn't the class what's app it was a "clique" which might be a group of mum friends

His asd and learning disability is extremely relevant.