To think my daughter should not have been branded a racist?

[Nikinakin00]

I'm really not sure what you're all going to say...
My DD is 13 and has a diagnosis for ADHD and also for ASD.
She struggles in school, with her anger and in social situations but we are getting there and she is improving.
Unfortunately, because she is loud and can display inappropriate behaviour, she is always the first one the teacher notices and tells off or blames.
She is used to this now and kind of just accepts it most of the time!
She is very literal and will often refuse to talk to a teacher because she looks like a thumb, laugh at a teachers name that sounds like her favourite ice cream. So she can be immature.
Today in school a girl started taunting her saying she (dd) had problems and saying 'so glad I've not got your problems though' and pulling a face to insinuate she had learning difficulties (iyswim) whilst others laughed. So my Dd jumped up and said "well you're ugly with a squashed nose and you look like a monkey!'
This girl is mixed race (i know this because her mum is known in my town and she is mixed race) and reported a racial attack to the teacher and as a consequence, my daughter was told her behaviour was disgusting and excluded
I only found out when I'd finished work because the school called my parents, who collected her from school and they left me a voicemail.
I've been to the school and the head teacher basically said that the girls family are feuding with another family, it's become quite serious and they think my DD was goaded to make a racial comment to this girl. They also said that they removed her from the situation to protect her getting into further trouble and also the girls mother reports every racial abuse to the police and I'd have them knocking at my door if he hadn't of diffused the situation. This girls mother is coming to the school on Thursday with a solicitor to demand all kinds (not about todays situation) the head basically said any row or anything said to her dd results in racial accusations so I know there is lots going on.
My dd is adamant she wasn't goaded and says that she does look like a monkey and that's why she said it.
My dd's half brother is mixed race as are her cousins, we are not a racist family. I'm so upset that the school have publicly excluded her for racial comments, that they had to call this mother and say that she had been removed and that nothing was said to the girl or her mum about what she had said.
What about the comments she was making to my dd? Why aren't they equally as damaging? My dd has no self esteem, she has self harmed many times, the amount of effort to even get her to school is enough, but to deal with this aswell? She has been doing amazing lately.
The school have said they will have her back tomorrow but she is so upset. It took her 10 minutes to even get in the car because she was having a meltdown on the pavement outside of school. In her eyes, the girl said something bad so dd said something back.
I feel so sorry for her, she is 100% not racist but she as been branded one.
She very openly admits calling her a name and says "she knows it is naughty but it wasn't because of who her mum is and she said bad things to me that I can't help and she knows she has to be told off"
It's heartbreaking for me to see her not understand and I don't think the school have protected her.
Aibu?

There was clearly more offensive intent behind the other girl's comment than your DD's if the way you have put it is accurate, i.e. if the other girl actually does know better. It's right for the school to react, if anything so that your DD is able to become more aware of the (to her I'll bet, seemingly unfair) reality that certain characteristics are protected because of the amount of historic abuse suffered by those groups. It's believable that she doesn't understand the context of racism, but she'll be at an even further social disadvantage if she doesn't learn about it now and try to identify which insults are least appropriate when having "banter" - which other young people will undoubtedly engage her in whether she likes it or not, and which she may want to report as non-PC herself.

The school shouldn't be favouring the families who threaten the most legal or political action, nor breaching confidentiality by confessing to such as some kind of damage limitation effort in their contact with you. I feel your and DD's pain because I was bullied for Asperger's which I didn't know I had, and gender identity disorder plus asexuality which I didn't even know existed, and could easily imagine getting into huge trouble for something seemingly unfair at that age - if my school had even attempted to uphold equality laws.

Be sure to report every instance of bullying so that the school is forced to view you as one of the parents who squeaks loudly enough to get the oil r.e. unequal treatment. It's not right, but you have to do this if you don't want to resort to making official complaints to any other body.

Other than that, it makes for a good learning opportunity. Hopefully your DD now understands that she herself is part of a protected minority in having disabilities and that she is entitled to just as much support as a student who experiences racist bullying. Perhaps she will speak out appropriately in future.

The asker (I don't know what op means) never said the race of the girl in the orginal post she said she was mixed race one would assume black n white with the monkey comment too
Anyway I don't understand how that is racist and spaz/retard is directed at people with psychical disability not mental
This really isn't an issue the school are overreacting

tammy

Op means original poster.

But are you joking about the spaz/retard thing and disability?

Spend a few seconds on google and learn what they mean. You are wrong stop making yourself look even worse than you already did.

I don't think your daughter should have been branded racist. It sounds to me as though she takes things entirely literally and just said what she saw - in the same way as your example about her grandmother. It must be extremely hard to try and explain all the nuances of language to her. I'm trying to think of a parallel... When my daughter was a toddler, she would say things like 'why is that man fat?'. To her, she was just describing what she saw in front of her. She didn't know it's rude to say someone is fat, but it's ok to speak about someone being thin. Obviously we then went on to learn that we don't make personal comments - but to someone who approaches things logically, how can it be wrong to say fat but not thin?

I wish you luck OP. You should certainly push the school to reclassify the incident given your DD's history and the ethnicity of the other child involved.

Nikinakin00; I have a son with ASD who in his first few weeks at secondary school got into a situation oh so simular to the one you describe. A child of a different ethnicity was being cruel and calling my son names, my son says he had a black face. Other child reports the comment to his teacher. My son was spoken to by staff who understood that my son didn't understand the inappropriateness of his comment. The concept of racism was explained and a good life lesson learnt. My son apologised. He was utterly mortified to be in trouble and so confused, he just thought his comment was rude in the context of calling someone; fat, and was being rude in response to a rude comment made to him. He had no clue about the slave trade or that people dislike others simply due to their skin colour, that was thinking he was not capable of at the time. School were right to tackle this and I supported the way it was dealt with, at the end of the day, my son had been rude, you shouldn't make rude comments about people's appearances.

However the boy then tells the mother, the mother then kicks up a massive fuss about the 'racism' and then everything having been resolved in the eyes of my son and the boy, is then escalated and my son was then shouted at by other staff members and threatened with exclusion. We were contacted and on talking to the staff it was because the mum of the other boy had been making threats and the school felt they had to be seen to be doing something in response!

I was so disappointed that the school had dealt with the incident in a fair manner and my son had apologised to the boy the comment was made to, only to respond to threats of a mother they were clearly scared of and basically admitted that they were scared of the trouble she could cause and scared of being branded racist themselves.

I made it clear that I would be also making a complaint regarding discrimination for the comments made by her son.

Her son was known to be badly behaved yet was never dealt with for fear of repercussion from the boys family. The boy learnt he could get away with terrible behaviour without repercussion as staff were scared to discipline incase the mother called them racist. The boy later attacked a member of staff and was expelled.

Stand up for your daughter, accept that she should not of got involved in name-calling as I did with my son, but defend her corner and don't be intimidated by threats of being called racist if you know you are not.

I cannot abide discrimination of any kind but I also cannot abide people using claims of discrimination etc as a ' get out of jail free card'.

Excellent post not - though I'm sorry to hear about what happened to your son.

Having SN's does not make you racist, or excuse you from racist comments.

They both need to have a serious talk about not making highly inappropriate insults.

You are doing your daughter no favors by letting her use her SN as an excuse for bad behavior.

I say this as someone who has a couple LD's.

In fact I will say this, I have a cousin with (most likely) ASD and he is not even a little racist. He wouldn't dream of making a comment like that.

"Just been in to kiss dd before I go to bed, her iPad was next to her whilst she slept. She has been googling 'why is monkey racist to black people?'"

Oh bless her heart. It's obvious from this and from your posts that you have not brushed over her comments or make excuses. She is trying to process what happened today and learn from it which says a lot about her. :)

Bulb where is the OP letting her DD using special needs as an "excuse" for bad behaviour, what a ridiculous thing to say. Yet again all ASD are different and her DD had NO idea what she was saying could be seen as racist, as it is how is calling a non- black individual a monkey racist anyway? It's not even relevant your cousin has ASD and "wouldn't dream" of being racist - do you understand it can affect social cues and confusion re literal meaning of things? Eg " too many cooks spoil the broth" .....we can understand the concept behind this but this can be confusing for some people with ASD because they wonder why soup is getting mentioned in relation to what the other person is saying.

YANBU.
Sigh.
I call my kids monkeys all the time.
Heck I even call other people's kids monkey sometimes.
We're primates. Of course we all friggin' monkeys.
Okay, okay, I stand corrected. But monkey is cuter sounding than ape.
Since DC are nominally the same "race" as me, as is almost every other toddler within 15 miles, am I still a racist?

One inappropriate comment said in ignorance does not make a racist.

8yo DS went around classroom calling other boys he didn't like Nigger. The only non-British-non-white person in the room was the teacher. DS was clueless what Nigger fully meant, just had read it in a (children's) book & knew it was insulting & provocative.

DS is a rude boy maybe. Racist no.

Bulbasaur the fact that your cousin has ASD is irrelevant. Everyone on the spectrum is different and is effected in different ways. There is a saying that goes "once you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism" or something like that. The same thing can also be applied to learning difficulties.

I have ASD and would never say something like that but that doesn't mean that the OP's DD knew it was wrong.

YANBU
I always say Wayne Rooney looks like a monkey.
Also the big buy currently in strictly looks like a monkey.
Both are white. So am I racist?

No no No, Hellsbells. Wayne Rooney is a Gorilla. Deffo.

Indeed

I'm not sure whether those who are blithely ignoring the importance of context when considering the meaning and purpose of the words people use think the rest of us are stupid, or don't realise they are displaying their ignorance.

'Monkey', as used by an adult to refer to a small child who has a tendency to get up to mischief (sometimes 'cheeky monkey') is being used in a completely different, usually affectionate, way. If you couldn't work that out for yourself, you are the one looking foolish.

It's not the same as calling a white person a monkey because monkey has not been used as a racist insult to white people for several centuries. If someone threw a banana at Wayne Rooney on the pitch, it would be an idiotic thing to do. If someone threw a banana at Ashley Cole, it would almost certainly be with racist intent.

I feel for your daughter OP, I don't think she was aware that "monkey" is used as a racist insult, so did not say it with racist intent, but I think the important thing is to make her very aware that she is not being branded a racist, it's just that her comment could be construed as such. If you make a fuss about her being branded a racist it's only going to make her feel worse.

In this case it seems she genuinely did not know the racist connotations of calling a non-white person a monkey. If this was not pointed out to her, she would not learn the difference and she might be inclined to say it again to a non white person later in life, that will possibly cause her a lot more difficulty. It's better for her to learn why it is particularly wrong now - it's not branding her a racist and punishing her, it's pointing out to her how and why what she said is racist, so that she can learn not to do it again. I do feel very sorry for her as she clearly did not mean it in a racist way, but the School's hands are tied.

However I would be concerned if they were not picking up on disabalist language. The reason I think they have done the right thing with your daughter, while being entirely sympathetic to her, is that when I was younger than her, I said words which I now know to be disabalist slurs - I didn't know at the time, am ashamed and horrified about it now and wouldn't dream of saying such a thing to anyone these days. If no one had told me it was wrong I would never have learned that it was wrong (some things I did not learn were offensive until I was in my mid-20s!). Your daughter did not know better before, she now does. Although she is upset at the moment, it is a good life-lesson for her in the long run. However rather than insisting that the school does not frame this as a racist comment, I would be pursuing the fact that they have allowed a very offensive disabalist one to slide, that is really quite worrying.

Racism IS idiotic.

Her comment wasn't racist. She said she has a nose like monkey and she's ugly.
Feckin hell I hope this situation gets resolved. I'd go ballistic if my dc said this to anyone but to turn it into racism is ridiculous!.

Racism is more than idiotic, it is deeply damaging and often illegal.

I'm really amazed by the number of people who seem to be ignoring the fact that this girl called the OP's dd a 'spaz'. How is this OK while saying something, in ignorance, that appears to have racist overtones results in suspension from school?

Effectively what seems to be emerging from the school is that the school completely agrees that the other girl's behaviour was unacceptable but are frightened of the mother and so are minimising it. If that's the case then they are condoning and even enabling bullying by both the other girl and also by her mother.

The other girl was intentionally, maliciously taunting the OP's DD with disablist insults. She has not been punished because the school is afraid of the mother. Racism does not (or at least should not) trump disablism - a gross injustice has been done here.

I am half expecting this at some point with my ds 2, 9yo with ASD. One of the kids that misbehaves most in his class happens to be mixed race and has targeted the special needs kids before including my son. My DS2 has no clue regarding racism, he does not understand the concept. He once told me who was kicking him by saying the child with the brown face. He was being literal, the child does have a brown face. He may come out with something in the future that could be construed as racist. I hope the school will have the sense to understand my son and the way he views the world but I suspect it will just depend upon who it is who overhears.

I feel very bad for you OP , not only do you have to cope with the day to day struggles that having a child with ASD brings but also with your child's school which doesn't seem to be playing it very fair. The other girl should have been punished exactly the same as your child was.

OTheHuge, yes - but I think it shouldn't be that the OP's daughter should not be punished, if she wastes her energy on that the School will just think she is being petty and going for tit for tat. She has a very valid complaint to make about the other girl's clearly intentional disabalist comments, so should concentrate her energies on that.

Both you and dd accept that what was said was inappropriate, your dd wasn't aware of the implications of what she said at the time and now that she is she is remorseful, upset and worries about how her Dad will feel about her, from what you've said about her ipad history this is playing on her mind and she's making attempts to understand why what she said was inappropriate.

The other child called your child a spaz, knowing full well the implications of that word and in an attempt to upset your dd. Is this child having it explained to her by school or parents why her use of that language is utterly inappropriate and hurtful? Is being encouraged to understand how that would have felt for your dd? Has this child shown any remorse?

Can some people really not see how unfair that is?

You've done everything right OP, in dealing and punishing only what your dd said the school are failing both her and the other child, one is being taught about the consequences of what they say and how hurtful it can be, but at the same time hurtful language towards her isn't important or serious and won't be addressed. That's wrong.

Good luck for your meeting with the school OP.