Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

598 replies

PrincessScrumpy · 18/11/2011 09:59

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.

OP posts:
GwendolineMaryLacey · 18/11/2011 10:51

I didn't have time to react and was about to explain it's not a nice thing to say.

Just in case anyone missed it...

DrHeleninahandcart · 18/11/2011 10:51

FFS more typos

DD to be offensive
YABU

MmeLindor. · 18/11/2011 10:51

^PrincessScrumpy Fri 18-Nov-11 10:16:46
She has lots of books etc and has seen tv shows with different people in so she's not totally sheltered and when she said it about Tiger it was when he was on the news about his affair so ages ago. I have spoken about different races but didn't want to give her the idea that some people are racist (didn't want to suggest an issue).

I didn't have time to react and was about to explain it's not a nice thing to say.^

The OP didn't have time to react.

whoopeecushion · 18/11/2011 10:51

TeapotsInJune - 3yo's really don't get the social rules of not commenting upon a person's appearance.

I have a 3yo. She was having a haircut. The hairdresser had a fashionable fringe where it is sort of swept to the side, but a bit covering one eye. So my DD told her that she had hair in her eyes - because she did! It was not offensive, just an observation, albeit one an adult wouldn't have voiced.

SardineQueen · 18/11/2011 10:52

It takes a split second to react facially to something your child has said.

The woman will have seen whether your face immediately went to horrified, or not.

I am guessing it didn't. And she wasn't impressed.

I agree with porcamiseria that not to react to a comment like that is not on at all. And if your DD had said "that lady is really fat" or "that man looks scary" you would betray your feelings facially very quickly and it would be obvious that you were mortified. No-one can help what small children say but it is usual to react when they say something wrong.

GwendolineMaryLacey · 18/11/2011 10:53

Oh you were there? Sorry, I didn't realise.

ElaineReese · 18/11/2011 10:53

Nobody thinks that the child thinks Tiger Woods is edible larry. But you have to tell children they can't say black people look like chocolate. You just do.

slavetofilofax · 18/11/2011 10:53

porcamiseria I didn't say it was ok for anyone to call black people chocolate. Read what I actually wrote. I said that it can't be taken as being offensive or racist when it is a comment made by an innocent three year old who presumably likes chocolate!

worraliberty · 18/11/2011 10:54

And it's not for a white person to tell a black person they are being oversensitive about their colour, or attention being drawn to their colour, actually

I'm a white person and I would most definitely tell a black person they were being over sensitive if they blindly accused me of teaching my child to be racist without knowing a single thing about me.

A 3yr old's visual description can come across as rude, but a grown woman accusing a complete stranger of teaching their small child to be racist, is VERY fucking rude imo.

WilsonFrickett · 18/11/2011 10:54

^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.^

Well clearly she hasn't explained skin colour has she, and the one time her daughter brought it up she fudged it. So I'm not convinced she 'didn't have time to react'. When your DC says something daft (and we've all been there) you do react.

MmeLindor. · 18/11/2011 10:55

Hully
But if it was said in innocence?

Last year my DS (was 5yo at the time) told me about one of the boys in his class getting into trouble. I didn't recognise the name and asked which boy it was. He pointed, "the one over there with the red tshirt on".

It was the only black child in the school, and DS described him by his clothes.

Children are not racist, until we teach them to be.

The OP was wrong not to speak to her child when she made the comment about Tiger Woods, but she did not have a chance to talk to her before the other woman jumped in.

SirBoobAlot · 18/11/2011 10:55

YANBU. She over reacted big time. I was out a little go when my health was bad, on crutches, and obviously walking with difficulty, stopping regularly, wincing, wobbling a bit. A little boy stared, pointed, and asked me, "Why are you walking like a silly clown?". I laughed - it was sweet! And then explained to him that my legs didn't work properly.

I get a lot of stares, points, comments from kids - and they're not all "PC". Because they're kids. They're curious. They draw logic in the only way they know how. Silly walking = clown. Brown face = chocolate. None of it is discrimination, little ones don't have the brain function to be delibrately malicious.

SardineQueen · 18/11/2011 10:56

The fact that the OP had not spoken to her DD yet is beside the point. Her face will have given away her feelings.

If a child says "mummy that woman is really ugly" the parents face says it all straight away.

hermionestranger · 18/11/2011 10:56

I think the lady was being VVU. We live in Manchester, so DS is very used to being part of a multicultral society. However on the bus in town earlier this year he piped up "Mummy why is that lady's skin so dark?" The lady said because I'm from Africa and it's much sunnier there so our skin is dark so we don't get sunburnt! Grin We all had a very nice chat about different skin tones/types/hair colour etc. He was 5. It's just curiosity about the world and sorting it all our in their heads.

MmeLindor. · 18/11/2011 10:56

I should have said, "he" there rather than "it". Sorry.

WilsonFrickett · 18/11/2011 10:57

worra the woman may have been rude. Clearly, if someone is rude to me I can recognise that behaviour and name it and call it out. That's absolutely fine for me to do that.

It's not fine however for me to decide someone is being oversensitive about their colour, because I am white, I am in the majority and I will never know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of racisim.

OrmIrian · 18/11/2011 10:57

sardine - how do you know what the OP's face looked like Confused.

Hullygully · 18/11/2011 10:57

mme Lindor - I know what you mean, but by the age of three a child should have been taught not to say "chocolate face" "yellow face" "fatty boomboom" etc IMO.

whoopeecushion · 18/11/2011 10:58

WilsonFrickett - the woman was actually very very rude - "nice to see you training her to be racist already".

"nice to see" - sarky and nasty

"training her to be racist" - ludicrous - even if you think the OP had a chance to say something to her DD, the most she could be accused of was not correcting her daughter - rather than actively encouraging as implied by the word "training".

Anyway, there was nothing to correct anyway. The 3yo made a simple, correct observation.

You could argue that it was actually the black woman that was racist. What if a black child had accurately likened the colour of black skin to chocolate - would she have been accused of being in training to be racist? No? Well the OP and her daughter were berated because of the colour of THIER skin = RACISM!!

PavlovtheCat · 18/11/2011 10:58

ridiculous. She did not say it to offend. She clearly did not say it with negative pre-conception, there was no judgment, nothing to suggest that she has learnt inappropriate views of those who are different. She simply said what she saw, which to her was a woman with skin that is a different colour to what she is used to using a comparison she knew. In fact, she may have been saying it as a compliment, putting a positive spin on it, as she likened it to something she finds appealing (i presume) rather than something that is brown and unappealing.

She is 3. She does not need the 'racist' talk and I don't think she needs to be told what she said was inappriate or offensive.

GwendolineMaryLacey · 18/11/2011 10:58

Yes, the OP was wrong to dodge the Tiger Woods issue. But then my also 3yo DD has had the discussion about people being different. I still couldn't swear that she won't come out with something at some point and I'll just have to deal with that if it happens. She's 3. That's what they do.

slavetofilofax · 18/11/2011 10:58

And it's not for a white person to tell a black person they are being oversensitive about their colour, or attention being drawn to their colour, actually.

It is if that black person is accusing a white person of being racist when they are not being racist!

Racism is a horrible horrible thing, and accusing someone of it ( or of teaching it to your child) is not something that should be done lightly just because you are to engrossed in your own feelings to realise that a three year old was just saying what she saw.

noeyedear · 18/11/2011 11:00

My 3 year old calls my mum 'brown grandma' because he had a 'white' grandma too. I've told him and told him not to, have suggested alternatives, have called her by her name, but he still does it. Sometimes just because a 3 year old says something doesn't mean they are not being picked up on it at home, or the parent doesn't mind, but just that it hasn't got through yet.

larrygrylls · 18/11/2011 11:00

Worral,

Absolutely. Can you imaging a novel where someone was described as "a good looking guy with chocolate coloured skin" as being considered racist? I don't think so. A lot of pale people would be extremely jealous.

A colour is a morally neutral description, especially coming from a child. It has no racist overtones...unless you want it to.

SardineQueen · 18/11/2011 11:00

orm by the fact that the op says she didn't have time to react" which implies that her face didn't show any kind of reaction to what her dd had said

If my dd had said that then I would have been well aware that I would look horrified.

the first time the OP says she was shocked was when the woman spoke to her. She expresses no dismay whatsoever at her DD saying it in the first place

Not to mention the fact that to think otherwise means to imagine that this woman randomly accuses people of being racist as a matter of course - which is less likely than her being pissed off that the DD said this and the mother didn't bat an eyelid

Swipe left for the next trending thread