To think that whilst DS' comment was wrong it was not racist?

[HaHaLOL]

DS is in year 7. An Indian girl was talking very quickly in English to him and being silly. He said "stop talking flippin' Hindu".

Today we've had a letter saying he has been given a Senior Staff Detention, in big bold letters - "for making a racist comment". He told me he had to write a letter to her and her parents (don't have a problem with this at all). This is all because the parents have made a complaint against him.

Now he has a fiery temper and we can imagine him saying sth like that out of anger/frustration. DH is sure it's not actually a racist comment and thinks it's like saying to someone "stop speaking double Dutch" and he thinks its PC gone mad.

DS' head of year told him today that his comment will go to the local council and be recorded in a "racist comments" book. Is this true?! Surely she wouldn't have made it up!

I would add that DH's best two best friends are Chinese and Indian. We lived in Asia for a year. DS went to a huge international school. He would have had more nationalities in his class than the whole of our town I would imagine. His best friends were Japanese, Korean, American and English. For 2 years DS has been learning Mandarin. I cannot imagine a more culturally aware 11 year old among his peers.

DH wants to write to the Head to challenge the racism angle, particularly if it's gone down in some record at the council.

I hope this post doesn't offend anyone. I just want to get some other views, please.

Thank you.

This is from the Crown Prosecution Service and the definition of what is a racist incident seems to be an outcome of a recommendation from teh Macpherson Inquiry. But not all racist incidents are criminal offences and therefore are not all liable to prosecution.

The Coalition removed the obligation for schools to report, it seems, and it seems that different schools may have different policies.

"Racist or religious incidents

The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report was published in February 1999, and defined a racist incident as:

˜... any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person."

We accept this definition.

We define a religious incident as:

"Any incident which is believed to be motivated because of a person's religion or perceived religion, by the victim or any other person".

Both definitions help us to identify all racist or religious incidents on our case files to make sure we take the racist or religious element into account when we make decisions about prosecuting."

www.cps.gov.uk/publications/prosecution/rrpbcrbook.html#a02

Mean hackmum of course....no offence meant.

Oops I mean 'Hindi-speaking' in my previous post, obviously! Being racist myself now

I have a group of friends who are very multicultural. We frequently acknowledge stereotypes within the group (for example, the Mexican couple in our group are late for everything to the extent that it is a running joke that we establish whether We are meeting at 4pm local time or Mexican time). There is no offence and, probably importantly, there is no dominant race in our group - quite a mix.
It is all about the context though, and similar comments in a different group would be considered racist and offensive.
Children need to learn these distinctions and work out appropriate dialogue for the situation they are in. Swearing may be fine in their peer group, but is not fine not in the classroom. In this case, it sounds like he has learned this lesson the hard way.

Total overreaction by the school. And the girl's parents. And frankly the girl was thoroughly rude in trying to shut the OP's son up in the first place.

I would fight it with the school OP.

"Parents were ordered to send their children to a workshop on Islam or have them labelled as racist for the rest of their school career.

They were sent a letter warning that the primary school pupils would have a ‘racial discrimination note’ put on their records if they did not go."

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2511841/Children-8-racist-miss-Islam-trip-Schools-threatening-letter-parents-met-outrage.html

'I would fight it with the school OP.'

I don't think there is anything you can do about it. And might it even get worse if you do object with more records kept on file?

Not only do we not know the girl's parents because she went to a different school before this one, but I have just found out that she works in the office at DS2's school (he is Y5). I feel sick to the stomach now that DS1 and possibly the whole family have been branded as racists and with some staffroom chatter etc. word will get around and DS2 will also be judged.

This is the trouble claig - the 'boot is on the other foot' now and anyone so inclined can play the racist card at any perceived slight whatsoever.........and there is nothing that can be done about it.

It is a sad sad world for all of us.

Smashley that's horrible. Your poor DS.

"A six-year-old child cowers tearfully in her school's office. She knows she is in serious trouble for uttering a 'bad' word. Her fear is compounded by confusion.

She has been accused of racism but is far too young to understand the gravity of the charge or grasp its dire implications.

But she knows her transgression is a dreadful one: a phone call has been made to her parents; official forms have been filled in; the adults around her wear dutifully censorious expressions.

The little girl is in tumult. She has to be reassured that the police will not come and take her away."

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1225083/Could-child-branded-racist-next.html

This is bad enough, but at least the report to the Local Authority does not identify her as far as I understand it. It is just used as a statistic.

As someone who lives in a foreign country I can tell you that one of the most frequent ways foreigners are abused by the natives is by comments belittling their ability to speak the language. The whole 'What, you no speaky the English?' type of attitude. It's a horrid, indirect way of pointing out your perceived superiority over someone. It is racist and the school are right to take action.

My son has Aspergers and says what he sees. I'm surprised, judging by the way this country is going, that he has got through his special schooling without being incarcerated for racism. (He wouldn't understand it even if you spent 10 years explaining it to him - it would be illogical.)

'It is a sad sad world for all of us.'

Yes, it is encroaching on other things too, it is the ever increasing march of political correctness and will probably one day lead us to Big Brother with reporting and records and files for relatively minor things. I wouldn't be surprised if it is part of something deliberate that some political parties want.

Doesn't sound rascist at all. I think by Hindu he meant Hindi which is a language as opposed to a religion. If she was talking quickly and mixing words around so it didn't make sense he could have genuinely thought she was speaking Hindi-Indian languages are interspersed with English words. Although she is British she may still have a strong accent-I grew up with Pakistani children born in the UK who spoke with a strong accent as they spoke only their parents native language at home. If the child was Italian and rabbiting on to him and he'd said "stop talking flippin' Italian" would that have been rascist? I think people are too quick to should "rascist" when something clearly isn't.

The comment was racist. I am also intrigued by your assertion , OP, in your first post that the girl was 'Indian' but you have now revised that to 'English'. This is quite revealing, IMO. I assume you made your initial comment based on skin colour.

Oh dear - perhaps she should have politically correctly said "Indian extraction" or "Indian heritage".

So HaHa in talking to him about what she was doing! have you ascertained why he used the words he did?

donnie DS said she is Indian and she has an Indian name. When ppl here started questioning whether she spoke with an Indian accent I asked him. He then said no, she was born in the UK and has always lived her, but her parents were born in India. I don't know what you are insinuating by saying it's revealing. It is nothing more than what I have said above.

It seems to me that the using a legal definition if that is indeed what it is to a year 7 is mad. My guess is that use of blasphemy is not challenged at the school.

TSS he knows that the words he used were wrong so I do not consider the reason he used them as an excuse for him to say whatever he wants. I was merely trying to fill in the background as he is a sensitive kid and I find it hard to believe that something didn't trigger the reaction.

we're talking about a deliberately hurtful comment made to an Indian girl

You seriously think an 11 years old thought....."she is Indian so I will be deliberately nasty to her about the way she is speaking"? Seriously?

It was a throwaway comment. It was not a deliberately thought out derogatory comment. FFS some people just love to cause trouble where there is none.

DS does not dislike people based on their skin colour or accent.