Is my child racist?! I don’t know what to do!

[Namechangefour]

Before I begin, I should say: I’m mixed race though look very white.

I was telling my my 5-year-old that I am going to look for someone to look after him after-school one day a week from next term. And he said, “Fine but please can you not choose anyone black?” I drilled this down and down and down and he meant what he said. Not someone black.

I said “Why?”

And he said “I don’t know.”

I said, “You know grandma was black?” (He never met her, she died before he was born).

And he said, “I know, but I don’t want you to choose anyone black.”

I said, “You know mummy is half black?”

And he said, “I know, but please don’t choose anyone black.”

I had absolutely no idea what to say. I remember reading once that you shouldn’t shame children for saying things like that, and we were in a cafe at the time, so all I said was, “You know what you said isn’t good, right?”

And he said, “I don’t know all the things yet!”

I didn’t want to get into it (mostly because I didn’t want to get it wrong) so I said we’d talk about it later.

But I am still totally unable to think what to say. I’m heartbroken. Completely and utterly heartbroken.

Can someone give me some advice? I don’t know what to do! And I don’t know why he’s saying things like that! We live somewhere pretty multicultural in london, though his school is quite cringe-worthily white and middle class.

He said this at 5 ! Really?!?

Whyjustwhy23 at wanting to look like Peppa Pig.

Kids say crazy things. I used to call anyone with a beard Santa Clause. LOL. Just tell him that immutable characteristics like race, gender and class don't matter and to "judge them for the content of their character" as MLK would say. :)

Your son has acquired a social and attitudinal bias,most likely at school
Gently explore that,don’t go,in all guns blazin.take time,explore,explain challenge

@minminminnie Racism is a system based on oppression and white people are not, nor have ever been, oppressed.

Tell that to the Jews in Auschwitz. Or the Czech children sold as whores in UK streets tonight.

My DD went through this phase when she was the same age. She decided black people were scary/creepy and she didn’t want to see them. It was horrifying for me, I had no idea where it came from or how on earth to tackle it. She thankfully naturally outgrew it... I think it’s a fairly common thing.

My dd had a similar attitude aged about 2/3. She informed me she didn't like black people. Like you, we lived in a very white, middle class area. The only black people she knew were two children in the creche she went to. One was being assessed for autism and had very challenging, scary (to a small child) behaviour and the other was a girl who was very big for her age and who had taken a major shine to dd, who was very small for her age. Unfortunately, the other girl demonstrated her liking for dd in a very physical way, which often ended up with dd being accidentally hurt. So dd's only experience of black people was negative.

We dealt with it by lots of talking, watching programmes with positive black roles and hoping it would change. The autistic boy didn't stay very long, as he needed more specialist care, and the other girl, with the help of staff, became a bit more gentle. We had it sorted in about 6 months and dd and the other girl were friends. Another black child started in the creche and dd was fine and became friends with her too.

So I'd advise lots of positive talking, books, programmes, films etc. If you can, maybe look at some activities that have more diverse members. I'm sure he'll get over it.

One of the kids on our street told dd when she was 8 that there was a child killer on the lose in the area we were going to visit. It transpired that this child killer had red hair. After a meltdown and poor behaviour from dd we found out what her friend had told her. She was v upset and said she was never going to talk to anyone with red hair again. In her mind this would keep her safe. The killer had red hair so therefore she would not be killed if she never spoke to anyone with red hair. Kids have a very direct sense of logic. It's only through experience and being taught that they realise nuance and that the world isn't black or white, no pun intended. It's most likely he has a negative association with a particular black person whether from tv or school etc and he associates this with the colour of the person as opposed to some other characteristic.

My son is 5 and has just one black child in his year. The other day he said that this boy ‘has a brown head’.

This told me that they do take things very literally at this age because of course the boy is brown and not black if you were to describe him in a literal fashion.

Also that he has never heard the term ‘black’ otherwise he may have used it as a description. We never describe people by their race and luckily it has not cropped up in the playground yet (fingers crossed).

Also he says ‘black is a bad colour’ and what he means is that baddies in stories wear black when I asked him to elaborate.

But the Jews and the Czech people were not oppressed for being WHITE!
Oppression can cut across many lines. Race is only one of them.

To those saying that their white 5 year olds ‘don’t notice their own skin colour’ are missing their point. My brown skinned 5 year old definitely noticed his in a class of white kids and noticed the difference when someone shouted ‘go back to India you Paki’ at a Tube station. I am pleased your 5 year old can live in a bubble where they want to be Peppa Pig but not everyone has the privilege of that experience. (My 5 year old is hugely privileged btw- he leads a very comfortable life but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what racism is from a young age).

At 5, he’s definitely not inherently racist, so something has worried him sufficiently to say “it a black person”.

But, as others have pointed out, there could be all sorts of explanations that are plausible because he’s 5! He could have watched something a bit scary on TV, been told by someone that black people are strict or something similar (even a well-meaning teacher might have inadvertently set up a link by an offhand comment about their own mum being strict when they were growing up, for example), or he’s seen something he’s not sure of - perhaps there’s a childminder who picks up he’s worried about. Or it could be something from a book, or overheard and misconstrued, literally almost anything!

Do explain to him why it’s not OK to choose people for jobs (or friends, or anything) based on the colour of their skin.

Don’t stress out that he’s going to grow up racist.

My oldest dd is Hispanic. (She is adopted.) I am white. Her school, like your child's was completely white. She saw herself as white, identified as white, and when I adopted again asked for a white sister. Maybe your son doesn't want a black caregiver because he is concerned his school friends would see him as black?

My DS was in Y1 at a school in v middle class area in London, but a hugely mixed class. Teacher was doing Black History Month & they had been learning about Nelson Mandela and more generally I think talking about Africa.

DS is mixed race, I'm white we have NC with his dad/that side of family.

On a bus when DS said "mum, all black people are poor". I was horrified. Went in to speak to teacher as DS had said teacher told them that!! My DS had misunderstood some of what she was saying about disparate communities in S Africa & that's what his little brain summed it up as.

It is upsetting and shocking when they say something like that, but it's attached to something, and very likely something they have misunderstood. I spoke to his teacher & she was upset that that was what he had taken from the lesson, so spoke to the class about it more.

go back to India you Paki

This is appalling and not at all funny for you or your DS but you have to laugh at their absolute stupidity. What an imbecile!!

I can't see why you are so concerned about him being racist when you are racist yourself. Or is it acceptable to be racist towards white people?

Oh please, @rhubarbcrumbles. It is cringe-worthy for a state school to be disproportionately privileged compared to the community it sits in.

Being white is a position of (relative) privilege in this country. So is being middle-class. An ‘outstanding’ school being disproportionately white and middle class compared the community it’s supposed to be a part of us something of which we should all be pretty ashamed. It’s replicated right across the country and exacerbated by faith schools which distort catchments as much as house prices.

I don’t blame any parent for doing what they can to get their kid into what they perceive to be a good school. But the system is fucked up, and at least OP is self-aware enough to recognise it and the role she plays in it.

Disclaimer: I’m a white middle-class immigrant.

From what you have explained about the school it sounds cringe-worthy white middleclass...im white and im certainly not offended by that description! You started a thread to ask advice about ds not to be portrayed as a racist by oversensitive individuals looking to nit pick! with regards to ds, hes 5, hes more than likely has picked up this attitude in his school from other children and has no understanding of what it means. Im sure a few chats dropped in in a subtle manner will sort it.

Is his reading diverse? Good books with black characters can help encourage good conversation.

I've always loved Tar Beach and The Snowy Day, and I hear He's Got the Whole World in His Hands is great. And one of my favorite children's books, A Chair for My Mother, is about a Latina main character who lives in a diverse neighborhood.

Could there have been some abuse he's experienced that you don't know about?

I would teach him that we are all different but should be treated equally.

For what it is worth I would be mortified if any of my dcs said anything like the OP’s child.

I imagine what “ black” symbolises something totally different to your child than anything you are seeing in it from your adult POV. In
I don’t think it’s a racist response.
This sounds flippant, but my son became terrified of a certain sort of kitchen bin even he was 4. He told me he couldn’t trust my mum because she had one, got very upset going to me places incase he saw one. Then it all just stopped. Years later he told me he had decided they were half built robots and it terrified him.
But he could have attached negativity to anything, and it easily could have been something that in the real world had a complex and difficult history, like skin colour.

Lord have mercy.🙄

Did you ask him WHY he didn't want "anyone black"?
That might have been a good place to start.

I think what the OP meant that in a very diverse borough for a school to be ENTIRELY non diverse both ethnically and socially is cringeworthy.

I think most of us got that. And it IS cringeworthy. But go ahead and assume the OP is racist.