Aibu to drop racist student

Are you a solicitor?

No thought not 🙄

This is a fantasy world. There’s racism everywhere, you can’t get away from it, there’s plenty enough on MN.

But certainly this kind of talk for someone in their 70+ isn’t that extraordinary. She’s obviously quite ignorant and unsophisticated.

When I went round looking at care homes for my aunt who comes from the white side of my family, I was told by several care managers that the staff are trained to deal with racial infelicities.

@5128gap "or that sly hinting people do to open up a racist rant with the like minded."

So now you're a mind reader?

I'm not sure what sort of people you're mixing with but they don't sound very nice.

No one has the slightest grounds for any legal action against the OP. It is not a crime to tell someone they find their ways of refering to and comments about other people offensive, and no longer wish to teach them because of it.

The lengths Mumsnetters will go to defend racists never fails to amaze me.

I would say something, you won't make a difference otherwise. If it carries on once you have made your view plain, then drop the lessons and explain why. She may not be closed minded, as she is taking lessons to either learn or improve her piano and violin playing, so she has the capacity to change.

You're missing the point. Even if we reach deep for an excuse as to why a woman living in the UK may somehow have escaped the fact that 'coloured' is not an appropriate term, that doesn't explain why she felt the need to comment on a black person being on the front of the book in the first place. I'm guessing she wasn't saying "isn't it great that the book reflects the diversity of our society", but rather either blatantly complaining, because she doesn't want to see people of colour represented, or that sly hinting people do to open up a racist rant with the like minded.

"The poster saying seek legal advice?!"

I'm glad you see it as a joke.

You asked for advice, and I've given it. You do what you like with it. Just don't come back here in 6 months saying that you're in the middle of a discrimination case.

Nowadays people get into trouble for "discrimination" at the drop of a hat. We have people in prison for "hurty words" on social media.
I don't think this pupil will initiate any legal action, but she might have a son/daughter who won't be enamoured with you refusing lessons on the grounds that she's "racist"

Remember the Christian bakers and the gay wedding cake debacle ??

Off topic but I just came on to applaud you for getting a thorn character into the word þhink 👏

(though maybe there’s a simple explanation such as you are on an Icelandic keyboard)

OP, I’ve been in similar situations as a teacher and also pulled up on offensive terminology that I didn’t realise was actually offensive. I was so grateful to the people who (gently) told me so I could avoid causing further harm. Maybe you could put it to her in those terms (eg “I know you’d never want anyone to feel bad, Marjorie, so I wanted to let you know those terms are now considered slurs”).

TBH the music teachers I've known are barely surviving financially so I have taken this thread with a huge pinch of salt.

We don't know anything about this pupil's life before she became a pupil.

In South Africa there are a group of people known as "Cape Coloureds". These are multiracial people of mixed heritage. Their ancestry comes from the interracial mixing between the Whites (descendants of the Boers) Bantu and even people from the Yemen. Eventually, all these ethnic and racial groups intermixed with each other, forming a group of mixed-race people that became the "Cape Coloureds". or "Coloureds" for short. They are very proud of their heritage incidentally.
This name distinguishes them from those of Negro heritage who have much darker skins, who were sometimes called Kaffirs (derogatory)

If this lady has lived in South Africa, which I suspect, she maybe doesn't know what she says isn't PC here..

I'd do this

^ This

100%. Some people were excusing what Greg Wallace was alleged to have done due to his age. When he was a teenager, it wasn’t OK to sexually harass women. People got called out on it decades ago.

IMHO it’s always better to challenge racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism or anything else.

You can do it very politely and without confrontation. I tend to find asking people why is the best way. Sounds less attacking. And they have to hold themselves to account. “Why do you use those terms?”, “Do you realise it’s offensive?”, “Why do you think that?”.

If people go unchallenged, we’re part of the problem. That’s why I don’t like cancel culture. It makes people bitter and hardened in their prejudiced views. Better to challenge it. Used to have to do it all the time back in the day, when it was more overt, e.g. in football crowds.

IMHO silence is violence.

No it's not! Not all of us older people use those words. Don't make excuses for her.

Interesting that all the people defending the 'innocent old lady, who doesn't KNOW!!!' are choosing to focus on her uses of outdated terms for other Europeans rather than on her 'observation' about people of colour being on the front of a book. Anyone defending her care to explain what that's about if it's not based in racism? Why does she think that a black person on a book cover is worth commenting about? Just a person surely?

I wish my dad had about my gay nephew. Luckily my nephew is the most confident, proud young man who gives no shits at all

He hasn’t been exactly complimentary about my single mother daughter either, even though my grandson, his great grandson, is the most incredible child that ever lived

That was 25 years ago. Fortunately times have changed. Anyone under 90 knows these are slurs. So unless she is over 90 then she knows!

Unless she is pushing 100 it isn't a generational thing. Anyone in their 80s and under knows exactly that these are slurs.

Exactly, and why the need to state this student pays OP £320 per month for music lessons? It just comes across as virtue signalling.

As others have said, I'd be inclinced to have a conversation with her - she may not realise the terms she's using are offensive. My husband's grandmother came out with a couple of SHOCKERS in the early 2000s - the most memorable was her describing the colour of something as 'n* brown'. We very gently explained to her why such phrases weren't acceptable and she was genuinely horrified that she might have caused offence - she truly didn't know any better because nobody had ever picked her up on it before!