To think this is a bit racist?

[EMS23]

Two friends from completely separate friendship groups have recently expressed a similar opinion to me. They have each moved their DC from a school because 'she was one of only two children not called Mohammed' / 'they were all Muslims - I don't want my kid being the minority'.

After the first one, I was pretty sure it was mildly racist, felt a bit uncomfortable about it but I rarely see her so just thought, whatever, bit of a shame but no great loss.
Then one of my oldest and best friends said the exact same thing and now I don't know how to feel. I love her and have always really respected her intelligence so now what?
Am I being hyper sensitive here? I'm a white British person so i don't think I feel offended for myself IYSWIM but I abhor racism in any form and never imagined myself as being friends with people that I knew were.

Re kids in school.

No it's not racist. And I'm guessing if the class is all Muslim then it's possible (though not certain without knowing the area) that the parents are putting their kids there (instead of other schools) because it's predominantly Muslim which may suggest they may not be as forthcoming with allowing their children to mix outside of their religion, particularly out of school. More so if the parents themselves don't want to mix as more often than not, primary friendships rely on parent interaction and common ground.

Sound to me like you don't think of them as good friends as this would not be racist enough to stop most people being friends with someone. I'm wandering if this thread is just to provoke a reaction tbh.

Would it be ok for a Muslim mother to remove her child from a class because it was full of too many kids named John and Muslims were the minority?

No, thought not.

I'm not trying to provoke a reaction. Look at my posting history - I'm not a regular poster but not a trouble maker either.
As I said in my OP, one of these women is one of my oldest and best friends. Our friendship won't end because of this but I'll probably avoid this subject with her from now on because we clearly have different views.

It's not racism. It's islamophobia.

"Would it be ok for a Muslim mother to remove her child from a class because it was full of too many kids named John and Muslims were the minority?

No, thought not."

Of course it would be OK, Apatite1 ~ I don't think anyone would bat an eyelid. Well, I wouldn't. I don't concern myself with what other parents are doing. I just bother about my own.

Islam is not a race.

Children, ideally, should be afforded the opportunity to grow in an environment with other children who share their culture and background. Diversity and multi cultural environments are best discovered later once they are comfortable with and confident of their own identity. My feeling is that this grounding in their own heritage is the very least you should do for your own children.

if it's not racist it just generally being a bigoted twat

what harm can possibly come to a child who happens to have a different religion from their class mates?

how ridiculous

Apatite I'd be fine with that.

If a Muslim mother wanted to move her child to a school with other students of their culture and religion id understand that!

Children, ideally, should be afforded the opportunity to grow in an environment with other children who share their culture and background

Oh I think America did that up until the 1960's ...and South Africa

surely you get your cultural identity at HOME where most kids spend the first 4/5 years and most of their time when not in school

This reminds me of a stand up skit where I think Omid Djalili makes reference to predominantly Muslim areas where white British moan that 'the foreigners' are all moving in where actually what is happening is all the white British are moving out.

The only reason I might consider removing my child in the situation that is described, is if I felt he would struggle to have a decent friendship group and be left out of any celebrations such as birthday parties, sleepovers etc.

I loved the Educating the East End program as it was truly wonderful to see multi culturism working (in the main). I think I've got so used to hearing all the negative shit in the media I hadn't realised the reality was quite so different.

Cultural grounding in their own heritage is my job. It would be arrogant in the extreme for me to assume that teachers, TAs and other staff share my heritage, let alone other children.

The closest decent school to my house is a school with 90% Muslims. I didn't put my daughters name down to go there as I wanted her to be able to fully integrate with her class, and didn't want her to be an outsider.

Dd eventually went to a different more representative school and immediately made friends with a lovely Muslim girl who's family I knew and got along with but who, despite frequently asking, was never allowed to come to tea, no parties, no brownies. I even asked Mum to come but she said it wasn't allowed. This was disappointing for dd but eventually she was able to make friend with people who were allowed to do the same things as her although her and the first girl are still friends.

It's hard to know what to do for the best. I don't think wanting your children to be able to play with people who's family have the same values as you do is a bad thing.

There was quite a constructive thread about the extent to which people felt different minorities mixed with others. This was discussed at both friendship levels of children in and out of school and the mums at school gates.

I think the general feeling was that sometimes muslims do not mix as much and sometimes they do. They were a few posters who said their DC were v good friends with muslims children but they were not allowed to goto parties or mix with non-muslims. I think it was because of religious and cultural reasons not because anyone was accusing muslims of being racists or anything. It was also mentioned that people had muslims as friends - mums and DC. The thread stayed quite balanced (well the point I read) and it was just accepted that this happens.

So in relation to OP's friends I can understand if they had concerns about whether their child would be able to make friends and socialise etc - but it would depend on how 'strict' the families were.

I am friends with two muslims and we all get on great and do things with the children together, but I am aware of other muslims in my DS class who have been told not to play with non muslim children because 'the brothers have to stick together'.

I think its fine if people want to stick to their immediate social and cultural groups - its part of our identity but fine for integration. However you ccan' force the latter.

I don't know if it's racist but it would bother me if my child was speaking a monitory language as a lot of class teaching would be focussed on developing English which my child can already speak. I'd also worry about my child not being included socially - the Muslim parents at our school don't mix with the families of other backgrounds.

sadly i think the kids wouldn't care but the parents obviously do.
Why would it matter? children are children regardless of their religion.
Muslim children play and chat and are NORMAL just like every other child.
...This is a really depressing thread.

One of the reasons I avoided our local catchment school is because it is 100% white and I didn't want my boys to be isolated, they are mixed race. I might have sent them there if that was my only reservation but there were lots of other issues too.

cucumber I don't think it is true of all muslim children IME

In our year group we have had problems with some muslim children from stricter families calling out muslim children from more - I dont know what the correct term is I suppose - less strict/liberal about clothes and food. It has caused some unpleasantness for some families involved.

Yes let's all just stay in our own little ghettos then shall we?

andsmileitschristmas - I understand where you are coming from, but the problem is, you cannot tar all children because of one case or a number of anecdotal cases as they are the ones that get bandied about, not all the 'normal' friendships that occur.
The sort of thing you have mentioned could be true of any 'group' and is just not representative.

If you are a minority unfortunately the actions of one group gets magnified and therefore suddenly we are all the same.
My children go to a school where they are the only non-white children, I never thought twice about it and I would be horrified and saddend that if the reverse were the case, people would choose not to go to a school as my children were not deemed good enough.

amazing given the % of Muslims in the UK that so many schools are over run

(and by 'Muslim' you know they actually mean 'brown' )

MrsDeVere I take your word on that issue but while I don't for a moment believe we are overrun I do think there are some pockets with an extremely high percentage of Asian families many of whom are Muslim.