to be upset at racism accusation due to dd1's comment in town.

[PrincessScrumpy]

dd1 is 3 and said loudly "look mummy that lady has a chocolate face." The woman heard and said " nice to see you training her to be racist already!" I was really shocked. dd didn't mean offence it was an observation that her skin colour was the same as chocolate. She's only met a few people from other races due to us living in the West Country but I've always explained skin colour in the same way as hair and eye colour being different.

She did say it once before about Tiger Woods on TV but I decided to ignore it and not make an issue. dd now is asking what racist is and I don't think a 3yo needs to know - they don't see colour as a issue or feel superior etc. Left me shaken and actally quite cross. I really think the lady was being oversensitive.

YABU - It is natural for your child notice differences and comment. I suspect the lady in question pegged you for a closet racist. 'If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem' if you see what I mean. This situation might not have arisen had you taken the chance to educate your child when your child described Tiger Woods as 'chocolate'. Does your child consider that you have a chocolate face (all be it white chocolate?) I doubt it. You have a normal face therefore the 'chocolate' faced people are by definition 'not the norm'. That is very different to conveying that someone/ something is the the same (equal) but different. I doubt this is what you were trying to convey but that is what you were doing.

Am with flatbread and others on this one. I saw a similar thing on child of our time with the picking of 'good white faces'

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8786641/Dress-witches-in-pink-and-avoid-white-paper-to-prevent-racism-in-nuseries-expert-says.html

Since my children have been able to talk I have talked about many things that are stereotyped eg skin colour, house sizes, poverty, obesity etc They still have loudly asked embarassing questions / made embarassing comments but I apologise and immediately address whatever the issue is.

Filofax - do tell more, I'm interested.

Fortyplus - since you agree with what I wrote it shouldn't be hard to understand that when you hear something that sounds racist, you shouldn't be expected to respond according to pure, calculated logic. People are allowed to feel strongly about this stuff, and the woman hardly let rip with a stream of expletives, did she? Her statement would have gone straight over the 3 yo's head.

Forgot to say that I have quite a lot of experience of west country 'local' and have found it one of the more racially offensive areas, beaten only by a certain town in the north west...

MayaAngelCool - yes I think it reflected badly upon the woman as an individual to have shown such lack of self control in public and particularly in front of a child of that age. I can't imagine any of my black friends saying such a thing.

Spangles, that article made me laugh! The last bit, about good vs bad faces, is very worrying, but the rest of it??!! Having grown up on Meg & Mog and the Wizard of Oz it never occurred to me that there might be a racist undertone! Besides, Meg (the good witch) is a white woman dressed head to toe in black. Multicultural before her time! .

In what way did she "lose control"? Can you quote the parts of the OP which say this is what happened? You seem to be letting loose with your imagination.

Maya I like meg and mog too, fantastic books for getting your children into reading too The faces thing was really sad to watch. The little boy with a positive 'black' face impression had been given positive reinforcement of colour by his mother. The article touches on how you children can start to dicern race being a positive or negative thing. You can see how subtle conditioning works, constant images of black being associated with back and white with good. Black heart, white lies etc advertising, one that was banned a few years ago featured speed skaters dressed head to toe including tight hoods in either all black or all white. The badies were the black and the goodies were white. Complaints were upheld and it was banned. I remembered disliking it from the minute that I saw it.

i think the woman was rude

very rude indeed

Excellent post from flatbread.

Excellent.

Throwing an insult at a random stranger is a loss of control in my opinion

If that random stranger appears to have done something offensive to you, that is not a loss of self control. That is self-defence.

I suggest you ask your black friends how they would respond if somebody said something which they suspected was racist. Would they react with emotionless logic, or would they employ at least a touch of attitude? What if the perceived abuse was homophobic or anti-disabled people? Would you still expect people to keep their emotions out of it? Prejudice of any sort should not be tolerated politely.

Maya the women was a racist (not op the black woman was) There was no need for it.

Maya , walk away, for your own sanity

MrSpoc, you are talking nonsense.

The lady called it as she saw it. And OP should see it s a wake-up call to socialize her daughter properly. It seems OP is all about 'me, me, me' with no self-reflection on how her and her dd's behaviour impacts others.

I suspect if the lady had said nothing, OP would have continued her merry way without saying anything to dd either.

Just read this article and find it bizare. Thankfully all the comments that were left were normal.

The best response to it was this, and i think it sums up this situation.

Black witches, racist. White paper, racist. Who thinks this up? Well, progressives/liberals do. The left, who claim to want equality for all, are way out in front in the ... race ... to make race an issue. Wouldn't it be nice to move on and have everyone live peacefully, all past transgressions relegated to the history books? Oh, no! We liberals must keep racism alive, and to do that, we must come up with all sorts of crap! What next? A white moon in the sky is racist? Peaceful white clouds versus stormy black clouds? Those intent on making race out of anything are the most racist of all.

no she didnt, she heard a small 3 year old girl say, look she hase a face like chocolate. Where does that man her mum is racist. In fact the woman was racist to accuse her of it.

Whether or not Op would of said something is irrelivant as she was not given that chance. Are you now saying Op is racist?

MayaAngelCool
If you react to something you 'suspect' is racist it says more about you than it does about whatever it was you are reacting to.
I would think reacting to a 3 yr old making an innocent comment like 'That lady has a chocolate face' is ridiculous.
Should we all get away with reacting to 'perceived' insults.? I know people who get offended at the slightest thing

I think we all have a resonsibility to learn to manage our emotions not react because we are over sensitive. There ARE a lot of ignorant people out there who ARE racist but to confuse them with a little girl who has made an observation is ridiculous.

www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1870408,00.html

Davesmum actually not reacting to something racist it is more likely to say something about a person.

Well look If it had been me your little girl was talking about my first reaction probably would have been a mixture of suprise and hurt actually. I wouldn't have accused you of teaching your daughter to be a racist, but Whether I stayed annoyed would have depended upon your reaction, apologising etc.

If you didn't apologise I would then assume you to be ignorant at the very least.

I would like to point out that racism is very much alive and well even, if not especially, in urban so called multi-cultural areas. It's just more 'private' and more of a deliberate choice IMO, so it's not suprising she reacted as she did and really, although she may have accused you wrongly, you should have appreciated that and not have got miffed.

Very surprised to see so many people saying that the woman was BU- I think YABU to be annoyed about her reaction- do you know what it is like to be on the receiving end of racist/personal remarks, whether the remarks are innocent OR ignorant, intentionally or unintentionally offensive?
I thought the idea that 'funny' and 'innocent' remarks are not racist was disproved years ago.
Yes, it's better to have such remarks humorously received as in the examples people have given, but then I suspect there's a point where the tolerance/humour run out.
Round here, mothers DO actually train their children in racist language (another v white area). You hear them talking to their children in prams saying 'look at that xxxxracist termxxxxx' etc- it is dreadful!!! So, yes, parents do have the responsibility to encourage and discourage certain terms and ideas.
You could have apologised and put both the woman and your daughte right, as opposed to complaining on here- so YABU.

no one has said that the little girl was being racist herself

i totally agree we should have passed this well it was not meant so it does no harm attitude it is for teh person to decide if it was offensive or not

i bet this woman is sick to death of having so called funny remarks made to her and now puts people straight, she did the op she did not tell teh child off