to challenge a racist remark made by a ten year old ?

[hooochycoo]

A ten year old very well, I know remarked to me that Indians should all go home and stop trying to make little Indias in England. I was shocked and told them that that was a racist thing to say, said that they should do some reading about immigration and emmigration and that it wasn't nice to say things like that . I also tried to explain how if they went to other countries they'd find british people living there, making little Englands, that people lived all over the world. And that they shouldn't say these things when they hadn't travelled outside Britain.

I wasn't angry or shouting. I was amazed at what they were saying and insistent.They said that they knew already everything they needed to know already because they'd seen newsround and seen pictures of India, and that indians were going round killing people and blowing things up. I then said that they sounded bigoted and explained bigot, before the child's mother stopped me.

The child's mother is really angry at me and has said that that her child wasn't racist because she's too young and that she justified in saying those things because of a boy at her school that was indian who was mean to her and because of the news coverage of the woolwhich attack.
. and that I was completely out of order to say what i said. Apparently I attacked her child and was patronizing. She said a ten year old couldn't be racist because they are a child and compared it too a four year with a stutter, saying i wouldn't have told the four year old he had a speech impediment.

what do you think ? aibu?

Does anyone else think that the Indian boy is mean to the 10yo because the parents taught then to spout this shit?

I think 10 is quite old enough to be challenged on racist views. I have challenged some children my ds has brought home on occasion. And my ds has got into a couple of fights in year 7 for challenging people in his class on racism. If you think 10 is too young to have their own point of view , then I suspect you haven't met many 10 year olds!

i would hope that the child is not parotting the mother, I love the mother and wouldn't have thought that she believed that.

That's why I was so shocked. and also amazed when she justified the child's views by saying that an indian boy at the child's school had been mean to her, and said that she wasn't racist as they had lots of friends of other races.

I totally agree with 90% of what you did but I think you went too far calling the child a bigot tbh.

I think disagreeing, challenging the views, talking about reading up about it and telling the child that you disagree strongly is all fine.
Saying they are bigoted is not fair on the child and not productive. If you couch your position in terms that simply call the other person names it's never going to make them listen to you.
I would rather argue and encourage the child to form their own views by showing them a more positive open way of thinking about things rather than telling them they are wrong and bigoted.
People rarely change their views if you make them defensive. You just put them on the other side of an arguement and stuck him in a box rather than show him there is a whole different was of looking at things that might be better.

'British people making little Englands' - Ilethim, just so you know, people from England are British.

HTH

So everyone's taking it as gospel that the mother is the one who the child is parroting then....

no, whothefauckfarted, ten year old don't come out with stuff like that. It's the parents who do.

And not all British people are English or indeed desire to live in a little England.

Whothefuckfarted - I wasn't aware Id done that. Thank you for enlightening me....

ok, thank you. Enjoying reading this and taking on board constructive criticism. Want to write an apology so this is all useful. Just gutted about the whole thing.

Well from what you've said now, I'm not positive the mother has those views and maybe you just went a little too far when pointing out what the child said was racist.

Calling her child those things has forced her to stick up for her kid and get mad at you. Maybe just being a little less forceful with it would have done the trick and she will have had to explain properly to the kid herself.

True, Ilethim, but the op didn't say or even imply that, did she...

'British people making little Englands' is a perfectly 'bright' statement which anybody knowing anything about our Colonial past would agree with.

And when you are angry and upset, sometimes syntax gets muddled.

och yes, indeed. british/ english/ typos etc. don't sweat it x

YANBU, but you have to be careful about what you say.

It's very important even in the heat of the moment to separate behaviour/ comments from the child i.e. That was a racist thing to say/ that comment sounded bigoted, not that the child is racist/ sounded bigoted.

Clearly 10 year old has picked up these attitudes from those around them, in this case almost certainly the mother. At that age they should be old enough to understand why they have been challenged and the explanation of why those comments are racist.

cat

Some ten year olds do. This child may have heard stuff like that at school from kids who did hear it from parents, or it could have been friends parents, or it could have been older siblings... the list goes on.

The child would have been challenged if they'd come out with that stuff at school, so I don't see the difference.

OP - did you know the mother's views on this kind of thing before?

The op did not say the child was a bigot, she said that the opinions she was expressing sounded bigoted and then went on to explain what that meant.

And, as I said, if people think 10 year olds can't have points of view of their own, then you can't have met many 10 year olds.

Nanny, that was exactly my thought when I read the title of the thread. He won't get away with it at school, and the consequences could be much more severe. Suspension for a start.

YANBU
10 is old enough to be told politely that they have offended you/someone and why.

i didn't say the child was a racist or bigot. i said it was a racist thing to say, and it sounded bigoted. perhaps the words are too strong and emotive for people to hear the distinction. Maybe that was the problem

If the child had said that at school it would have been formally recorded as a racist incident. And if she's saying it because one chikd of Indian origin is mean to her at school then of course it's racist - attributing characteristics to an entire group of people

I heard the distinction. I think you did the right thing. Perhaps you could have a chat with the mother without children present?

we tried curlew, and ended up having a huge huge fallout.