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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

something a child said to in the playground, more of a WWYD

46 replies

redhappy · 14/03/2011 15:52

Ds attends a nursery setting attached to a school. The ks1 children ahd been on a trip and were having a late play in the playground when I was waiting to drop him off. We have to wait by a gate for a teacher to let us in when the session starts, and some of the children came over to talk to us.

I explained we were waiting for Mrs to come and open the gate, and one boy started talking abut the teacher. I caught the end of it, "she ran away with a black man". He kept repeating this. It was meant as a joke, he is in yr1, but it really threw me.

This was what he was saying to my dcs (who are mixed race). Whilst they are too little to really understand what he was saying, it made me wonder about the future.

My instinct was to mention it discretely to a teacher, but I decided I was overreacting, or at least, there's not anything that could actually be 'done' about it, he's just parroting something he has heard. So I haven't said anything to anyone.

Is there anything that I could have done?

OP posts:
Reality · 14/03/2011 15:56

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
redhappy · 14/03/2011 15:58

That's what I thought. Not immediately harmful as such, he certainly didn't seem to really understand what he is saying. Yet.

But he will. And then it pass on as acceptable to a next generation. Just made me a bit sad, and surprised if I'm honest, to see that people still think/say these things.

OP posts:
sixlostmonkeys · 14/03/2011 16:00

yes, this is an old one, and not at all meant in any bad way.
I'm wondering now where is could originate from. I haven't heard it said for a few decades but recall my Gran saying it.

sixlostmonkeys · 14/03/2011 16:02

it's similar to the 'run off with the milkman' etc - nothing to get upset about, unless you want to :)

TimeToStartACHEEKYDiet · 14/03/2011 16:02

I think he has probably heard it from a grown up. I remember all the time if i came in from playing out and asked my stepdad where mum was and he would say

'Shes run off with a black man'

so maybe hes heard it from a grandma, grandad, dad, mum.

TimeToStartACHEEKYDiet · 14/03/2011 16:03

Cos i recall my stepdad also saying

'Shes gone to see a man about a dog'

HecateTheCrone · 14/03/2011 16:04

the difference is, imo, that you wouldn't actually say "she ran away with a blonde man" or "she ran away with a thin man" etc

You might say that she ran away with an old man, esp if she was young, because you'd be making all sorts of judgements about that.

So it's not that you could substitute it and it wouldn't be offensive. what makes it potentially offensive is that you insert it at all. Needlessly.

I was talking to a man in the pub
I was talking to a tall man in the pub
I was talking to a black man in the pub
I was talking to a white man in the pub
I was talking to a short man in the pub
I was talking to a disabled man in the pub

Which of those would be said and which wouldn't?

why wouldn't you say that you were talking to a white man in the pub, but you would say if the person was black? if colour is irrelevent to the story in both cases. Yet how often is that done by people?

It is the need to say it at all that is the problem. imo.

Original poster
redhappy · 14/03/2011 16:05

I'm not looking to get upset.

Actually just wondering about it, thought I'd ask other's opinions to get some perspective.

I do tink it is offensive though, the suggestion that by going with a black man tere is something scandalous?

Like I said I'm not trying to be upset, this boy didn't understand what she was saying.

OP posts:
DaisyDaresYOU · 14/03/2011 16:05

I.ve never heard that before I have heard the milkman one though.

HecateTheCrone · 14/03/2011 16:05

and I have just realised that she hadn't actually run off with a black man, but the kid was just saying she's late. Blush
ignore me.

bloody odd saying though. and quite offensive because clearly running off with a black man is meant in a scandalous way.

Original poster
redhappy · 14/03/2011 16:06

Thankyou Hecate, very well put

OP posts:
HecateTheCrone · 14/03/2011 16:06

Grin x-post redhappy.

Original poster
redhappy · 14/03/2011 16:09

Yes, I meant your 1st post, but we are obviously coming from the same place Smile

OP posts:
DaisyDaresYOU · 14/03/2011 16:09

I can see what you mean Hecate.You'd say(hopefully)i talked to a man in a pub

TimeToStartACHEEKYDiet · 14/03/2011 16:10

I think its an 80s thing and early 90s is it?

sixlostmonkeys · 14/03/2011 16:11

it's no more scandalous than the milkman when you think about. if it was run off with a man then surely the scandal is still there? so should it be run off with a person. But this might indicate that the human race are connected to scandal..... it is meant in a jokey way, and always has.

I would say to my gran "where's my mum?" she would say "she's run off with a black man" I would say "what's for tea?" she would say "a jump in the cupboard and a run 'round 'table" - non was true or meant, no scandal implied and I didn't starve Grin

DaisyDaresYOU · 14/03/2011 16:12

Oh btw I have blood relatives who are brown and I don't like the saying either.Why define the man by his colour.

HecateTheCrone · 14/03/2011 16:16

we are.

I think that it is interesting that so many people insert colour into conversations where it is simply not needed.

If you were talking about something interesting with a man in the pub and you wanted to tell me about it, I don't need to know what colour he was, because that's not relevent to the conversation. Yet many (white) people will tell you - IF the person was black, or asian, etc. They won't insert colour if the person was white.

But why do I need to know that the person was not white? how is that relevent? The fact is, that they feel it was. Or they wouldn't include it. That tells me everything I need to know about them.

Oddly enough, I haven't heard the same from any black or asian people I know. I haven't, for example, heard my husband tell me "I was talking to this nice white man in the pub..." ever.

Original poster
redhappy · 14/03/2011 16:17

Ok, to get pedantic about it, there is a difference between saying black man and milkman.

Milkman- well, the scandal is the assumption that whilst the husband is at work earning money to take care of the family, the wife has betrayed him with the milkman. Milkman is relevant because for a traditional housewife he is one of the few men she has regular contact with because he comes to the house when she is alone.

Black man- All we know is skin colour, so therefore it is inferred that is the scandal. Unless I have missed something?

OP posts:
Original poster
redhappy · 14/03/2011 16:19

That's interesting Hecate. When I was at uni I wanted to write an essay called 'This Big Black Guy' cos I was so sick of hearing that phrase.

OP posts:
HecateTheCrone · 14/03/2011 16:20

yes. it implies that the worst thing a woman can do is not to simply run off with another man, but to run off with a black man.

It's like

bad - run off with a man
worse - run off with the milkman
worst ever - run off with a black man Shock ooooh, he's black, she ran off with a blaaaaaaack man.

It's the fact that it is the most scandalous thing that could happen that makes it offensive, I agree.

SeeJaneKick · 14/03/2011 16:20

My Nan sed to say it...I would say "Where's Mum?" and she'd say "Run off with a big black man"

It wasn't the best joke...questionable taste...but this was the 70s.

HecateTheCrone · 14/03/2011 16:22

oh yes. drives me potty.

"I was talking to this black man about the weather."

really? were you talking to him about the weather because he is black? no? does he know about the weather because he is black? no? was he talking to you because he is black? no? did you choose him to talk to because he is black? no?

then why the bloody hell did you feel that it was important information that I needed to have, you prick!

SeeJaneKick · 14/03/2011 16:22

It probably came about in the late 1950s with the first influx of Afro Carribean immigrants into Britain. The biggest fears at the time among certain people were that the new black British would "steal all the jobs and all the women"

DaisyDaresYOU · 14/03/2011 16:23

If anyone had said that to nan as a joke.I'd of gone mad tbh

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