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.

My 5 year old (white) DD said she didn't like brown skin. I tried not to be horrified and asked her why, and she didn't know, only that it was different from her skin. Maybe it's a 5-yr-old thing, they tend to be very literal and like things to be in neat categories. I'd talk to him to try and find out why he said it. We live in a very white area but we seem to have successfully tackled it with lots of books about people of colour. One of her favourite people now is Rosa Parks - there's a really nice children's book in the Little People Big Dreams series that has been a hit in our house

I doubt it's anything racist at aged 5. You need to get to the bottom of it.
Children's brains work strangely, and he might have a perfectly rational (to him!) explanation.

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

Did you READ the OP, Julykit? That might have been a good place to start...

👇👇

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 agree with PP's that it's likely a reaction to something or someone rather than an inherent racial bias. DS2 only has one black child in his class (there are only nine in the (small village) school). He came home one day and declared that he hated black people. I was horrified! After some careful discussion around the subject it turned out that this particular girl was making fun of his lisp. She was the only black person he'd ever spent any real time with, so he assumed that all black people were mean like she was.

I think ohyesiam's example is a good one at 5 they aren't logical thinkers and also if their language skills are good it is easy to overestimate their understanding. Worth a chat with teacher in case she had any thoughts.

It could be completely different to what you are thinking. It may not have anything to do with skin color, or if it is it could be for a really bizarre reason. I remember when I was small there was large building near my house that people called "The Bee Hive". It was called that because it was Yellow. As a little kid though I thought giant "bee people" lived there and was terrified of the place. I still remember clearly being scared of that building, which was ridiculous in hindsight.

There are a few black teachers, and our neighbour who he really likes, and runs up to to chat to every single day, is black.

Is his own class teacher black? Is one of the black teachers maybe a lot stricter or even a bit unkind and he's got it into his head that all black people might be like this and that's why he doesn't want someone black to look after him?
There has to be some reason for this.
Maybe try to chat to him about the different teachers at school and what they are like.

When I was 5 I was due to start violin lessons and had been asking to play for a couple of years but when my parents started looking for a teacher I said it had to be a man!! My Mam presumed that this was because I had only ever seen male violinists on television rather than some deep-rooted assumption that men were better than women.

It's likely he's becoming aware of his own black heritage, which has maybe been sneered at.
DS aged four, before he ever went to school, asked about his father. As I had done several million times before, I explained a little (He's from Africa, he has dark coloured skin etc.). DS asked his name. I told him. He said 'that's not a name!' Ds as only a child could do, declared that he didn't want to be half African! I tried to explain that he wasn't, but that his father was etc. etc. Silence.
I went to the library and specifically asked for a library book about a white child with a non existent black father. There were none. There were books about Africa etc., but none that addressed the undeniable heritage in their skin colour. have since thought of writing an illustrated book for young children, but like most of my notions, I've never gotten around to doing it
DS is now a very proud mixed race teen, but I think at 4, it made him feel 'other'. Like he wasn't one of us or something. He specifically said 'I DON'T WANT TO BE AFRICAN!!' A lot of reassurance went in on that side while at the same time trying to not 'other' the other half of his heritage. It's quite the balance to try to achieve I'll tell you!
It will come right OP. He's too young for too much of a lesson, so just telling him about being kind and friends etc. may help. Incidentally - his teacher may be able to help. Guidance on books you could read with him etc.?

race is not skin colour and racism isn't just about skin colour

the Jews were most definitely oppressed because they belonged to the Jewish race a lot of the caricatures are about physical characteristics ie the hooked nose exaggerated like Shylock or Fagin in Oliver Twist. In WWII those trying to help Jews escape had more difficulty when someone looked more typically Jewish; those hunting Jews were looking for what they saw as Jewish racial characteristics it is most definitely racism against Jews ,
racism can happen without it being directly skin colour Romanys being another group that may look European but are not seen as the same, or Africans viewing Caribbean heritage and race differently

Here come the white people demanding to be equally offended.

Here comes the projectionist who just has not a clue and will be eternally offended by a 5 year old. No 5 year old who hasn't been fed some information at some point discerns between peach, light brown or brown. The terms white and black do not make sense to a 5 year old. Flame on.

This reminds me very much of one of dss friends who had dual heritage. He really struggled throughout primary school. At secondary school, he was able to learn about and engage with the cultures of both of his parents, and to make sense of his feelings but I know that him mum really struggled to cope with his struggles for several years.

Don't be too hard on your ds. He is starting to work out who he is. He wants to be like his friends, who you say are mostly white. He wants to fit in. Most importantly he wants to be himself, but you are saying that he has some "blackness" inside of him, and he doesn't really understand what that is. He just knows that it is a step into the unknown, and that's frightening for him.

Yy to joining group which will help him to make friends with a wider range of people. Yy to reading about/watching programmes with a variety of black characters. But don't hurry it, and don't make him feel bad about his feelings. Offer him a different way of thinking: it's not what colour someone's skin is, that matters. It's how they treat other people. And repeat, as many times as necessary. For years if necessary.

Your ds is young. He can't name his feelings, discuss them, work them through with you yet. But they are real feelings for him, and no, it's not racism. He's not anti black because he feels there is something wrong with being black. He's anti different, anti change, anti uncertainty.

He will get there, with some positive input and lots of patience from you.

Racism isn't simply about skin colour though a lot of definitions would say racism can occur against any ethnic group.

That is a really weird thing for him to say IMO.

Granted I’m not black or mixed, but my children go to a fairly diverse school. At the age of 5, they would notice that so and so was brown and so and so someone else was more peach, but they never ever expressed any sort of like or dislike of someone because of skin colour.

I don’t think the ‘strict teacher’ example is relevant really, a five year old would verbalise that as a mean teacher, not a black mean teacher, white mean teacher, fat mean teacher etc.

Personally I think he must have heard someone being derogatory and is parroting it back. Especially as he couldn’t articulate a specific reason.

For me, this is so simple - we do live in a racist society, even - sometimes I think especially - those of us in very diverse communities, who do have kids in diverse schools . .. . Very young kids already know, the same way they know about gender stereotypes, what the ethnic, and a little later, the social differences in their classmates mean. The floppy-haired white boy from a huge town house, who's also brilliant at sports and goes skiiing in winter and on safari to Africa in the summer, becomes the most popular boy in the class; not necessarily the one with the most friends, but the one all the other boys (mostly brown or black, with immigrant parents living in overcrowded council flats) want to be.
And the tall slim white girl with long blonde hair, who's clever, confident (leading roles in productions) and also pretty good at sports (similar social background), ditto - she's the one, again not necessarily with the most friends, the majority brown and black girls all envy.

The classroom may be 80% BAME but the teachers are at least 80% white, as are the characters (Harry Potter, Horrid Henry, Jacqueline Wilson etc) in their books, TV shows, films, with the glaring exceptions (Moana) only proving the rule.
That's the reality of life for primary school kids in a so-called diverse inner-London, lovely though many schools are. They recognise so early who, roughly speaking, life's winners and losers are - and what they look like. And they know which they want to be.
The only way to counter this fatalism is by example - you and your child need black friends and family (and fictional, and historical characters) in your lives - as many as poss. Personally I wouldn't ever have put my non-white kid in an all-white school - there are plenty of brilliant primary schools in my area at least that remain properly diverse. But I still got "Mum (sigh) I wish I was white . .(like you) " from my DS when he was about the OP's child's age.

"Don't ever wish that!" I said, probably a bit sharply, but I was shocked.
"Why not?" he asked, surprised by my vehemence.
"Because (and I am quite proud of this) you are absolutely gorgeous the way you are."
He seems fine now, in Y8, dead proud of his enormous afro . . . As they get older, they need more direct engagement (not just examples); in particular, I'd say, a secondary school curriculum which takes Black history and experience seriously . . I'd check for that, ideally for all, but especially for any non-white child.

I think he’s probably aware of your heritage and doesn’t want to stand out at all.

My 3.5 yr old came out with something similar recently.
«[Girl A] likes Peppa too.»
«Oh, is [Girl A] your friend?»
«No, I don’t like her because she’s all black.»

Poor Girl A is the only black girl in the whole school (we live very very rurally). I know she hasn’t heard anything racist at home, and I sincerely doubt she’s heard anything racist from the other parents, so I can only conclude that she’s saying those things because Girl A looks significantly different from the rest of her classmates and at that age anything different is wrong.

I’d say it’s quite likely your son is feeling the same and he’ll get over it quite quickly if you dont make a big deal of it.

A white school is 'cringeworthy' because it is white.

No, it’s cringeworthy because it is white while the surrounding community is not.

Racial and social segregation, no matter the means by which it happens, isn’t very nice.

Much easier and more comfortable to claim faux offence and sling insults (without reading the OP’s own explanation of what she meant), isn’t it?

Can totally see why you were horrified by this but I remember a white 5 year old whose best friend was a black boy telling me, in front of said boy, that he hated black people.

I said "But Maurice is black, John, and you don't hate Maurice" and John gave me a very withering look (as did Maurice) and said "Miss, Maurice is BROWN."

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'm mixed race and have been told to go home. I promise you, the absolutely last thing you can do is laugh when that happens. It is absolutely horrible and makes you feel like shit. I haven't forgotten a single one of those comments and I am 51.

This is my home. I have never lived anywhere else. I live about twenty minutes walk from my childhood home right now.

Lol, I love how the little ones now refer to brown people as a descriptor. There is no malice or history that they know. They're clean slates. It's like 'She has blond hair'. 'He has brown skin'. It just seems more innocent and is hopefully inoffensive. Ds when ever I've (about twice) heard him describe himself, described himself as brown. He's too young to fill out forms which request ethnicity yet, but I wonder whether he'll describe himself as black or White (Irish). Yes, we are a class of our own . No idea why. Maybe because they were discriminated against previously.

I think the OP was being polite when she said "cringe-worthily". 'Fucking disgustingly' would, perhaps, have been more apt, and still not racist.

My DD went to a school in which there was one black family. Age 3 she asked the young girl why she was black. I was so embarrassed at the time and actually felt awful for the girl but it did allow us to open up a dialogue about how people have different skin. I wouldn't dwell too much on what your DS said as after all he is only 5, but use it as an opening to talk to him about different races, and his own heritage too.

The apple hasn't fell far from the tree, has it?

Mummy, prepare yourself for a lot of questions at this age. Then they find their path and won't talk to you at all lol.... I don't know which is more stressful.

DS's best friend was adopted (Asian). DS and his best friend concluded aged 5 that he must too be adopted as he didn't look like me. I got commandeered while I was bathing him one evening. 'Am I adopted?' Billy says because I don't look like you I am adopted'.

At 8pm on a Monday evening when you might be wanting to sit down was not when I wanted to explain that he wasn't lol. But I've had several of these conversations with ds at that age.

But once you reassure them during this curious part where they try to find where they fit , it passes by about age 7-8 I'd say.

There was a phase where ds tried to make his hair not be Afro, but now he has embraced it and costs me a fortune in hair products

Hmm, I’m having a similar thing with my mixed race children although slightly different as their dad is black (I’m mixed race but very light) they go to a very diverse school and equally we live in a very diverse part of SE London, so I’m not sure where it’s coming from! Most of my friends are black but my children see me as white, they don’t accept that I am mixed as I’m very light. I’ve had “I wish I was white like you” my dd even said she wishes her dad was white! My son has also made negative comments about black people which really took me by surprise.