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.

Our school is very mixed.

What's really interesting is that when I was in primary school in the 70's in our whole school we had literally a handful of black/mixed race/Asian kids. We had 2 Sikh brothers who were really nice and they got teased for a short while because of their white headscarves/coverings but generally we couldn't care less who was what colour. We also had brother and sister who were Chinese and went to live in HK eventually.

My mum invited the Sikh boys round and made friends with their mum as well as all the other kids and I don't recall a time when anyone didn't allow themselves round to our house/for tea etc due to religious/cultural differences.

I went to 2 secondary schools, 1 girls secondary modern and 1 fee paying convent.

At the SC there were girls of all religions/races. I think there were a handful who weren't allowed to mix with us but I can't recall they stood out really. The 2 Amish/Plymouth brethren girls in our first 2 years were the ones who really couldn't socialise with us much outside school. My white (this sounds awful!) friend who looked like Barbie when I was 14 actually made friends with a Hindu girl and got invited to all their weddings, celebrations and even had a boyfriend from that culture for a while!

At the convent we had Muslim/Buddhist etc girls attend as it was a good school. Again I was good friends with one (Muslim) whose parents owned an Indian restaurant and was invited round all the time. when she had an arranged marriage at 18 it tailed off quite a bit but we would have maybe grown apart anyway. The other girls I don't recall much about at all, they were from fairly Western Muslim families. We never had head coverings worn there and they were if anything far eager to be seen as more Western than Eastern!

i think it is a bit racist of your friends but I can also see why they may want (for mixing purposes) their DC to be in a school that's more mixed. I can also see the barriers that arise sometimes if parents from any religion/culture don't allow children to take part in out of school activities or to mix out of school with their friends. But not all parents are like that, or as strict. I'd still extend invitations and be friendly either way, but that doesn't apply to your DC or you!

Either way I wouldn't mention it or let it affect your friendship.

My dc do not go to our catchment school where approx 95% of the pupils are Asian or British Asian. They go to a much more mixed school where they are not a minority and are by no means in a majority either. It is no exaggeration, there are literally 2 or 3 white children entering the school each year out of 60. It does not reflect the mix of cultures in this area at all. If it makes me racist to have made that choice, so be it.

Blu I hope the link was useful. I meant to give you the link for Tower Hamlets too which may surprise you as it says "89.4% of school children are from a minority ethnic group"

Child Health Profiles Tower Hamlets

list of Child Health Profiles London

"Shaska,I think it's a nice thought that kids all mix together,colours,religions etc,and they could learn from each other,languages,traditions etc.But I think that's a bit of a naive view nowadays."

Really? I hope not! Given that the world is becoming ever more mixed, I'd hope that it's something that becomes more common and normal than it was previously, rather than less! And I certainly don't see people becoming less willing to engage with other cultures in my day to day life- if anything I see people far more willing to learn and understand. And that's definitely something I'll be trying to instill in my children. The way things are going, they are going to grow up in a world where coming from a white christian background confers less automatic advantage than ever before- I think that's a great thing and I don't see preserving the idea that they should be uncomfortable if surrounded by people of a different race or religion as positive at all.

Bullying is usually about people being perceived to be different isn't it?

Of course there is no bullying in UK schools is there, no one is isolated or lonely and at playtime they all join hands and sing "I'd like to teach the world to sing..."

TimelyNameChangey - that's true for many faith schools, with most being "only Catholic" or (more rarely) "only Christians". I agree with you that mono-faith schools are not as fulfilling (for all the children) as more diverse ones, but it isn't just all-Muslim schools.

As it happens, my DS has had most of his schooling where he is one of the only non-Muslims in his class - 2 or 3 out of a full class. (He's neither white nor Christian, btw, and the schools have been nondenominational state schools. There are a lot of Catholic schools in this borough so that means non-Catholics and non-Christians fill up the few schools left.) On the whole it has been fine, as there is as much diversity amongst the Muslim children as there would be amongst any other groups of children. Where it has been an issue is where almost all of his friends' dads (always the dads, never the mums) don't like their kids going to a non-Muslim house to play or for tea, which has rather hampered his out-of-school social life. (He knows other kids outside of school, so it's been fine.)

There are other things that his friends say, in class time and in breaktime, that I think are out of order (eg disbelieving in evolution, being homophobic, telling DS that he's going to hell), but which have made little impact on DS - he thinks being gay is no big deal and tells his friends so, and he finds the theory of evolution a perfectly acceptable explanation of current biodiversity given the available facts. And even him being told he's going to hell wasn't a bullying thing, and he didn't take it as one, just a theological disagreement between mates!

The one local person I know who sent her daughter to a different school an inconvenient distance away in order not to go to a Muslim-majority school is herself a practicing Muslim, and she said it was because she wanted a wider mix of cultural opportunities for her daughter than she had. It did make me wonder if my ease with the mix would be the same if my DS were a girl. (I don't know the answer.)

All you white people who have chosen not to have your kids go to a school where they will be in the minority - do you not recognise that this has been the case for most brown people in the UK until very recently? And what do you think your kids will catch if they are in the minority at their school?

A family friend told my mum that she didn't like the local school "as I'm the only white parent at the school gate" - and this is a supposedly well educated woman. People bandy these comments around as if it's a totally valid viewpoint, I don't get it. It's racist, and what the OP's friends have said is (by implication i.e. most Muslim children are not white) racist as well.

Some white people seem to think that the idea that their children - in their magical whiteness - should have to undergo the trauma of being in a minority is just too much to ask. Of course it's fine for the black/Muslim/immigrant kid to be the only one of that race/religion/nationality in the whole school, it's not a trauma for them as they should presumably count themselves lucky to be around all that magical whiteness. But it's not ok for "our" kids.

And we're in England, Albion, the land of whiteness, Christianity and English-as-the-only-language so people from other cultures deserve whatever they get, even if they're picked on for their differences.

Didn't actually realise how much this upsets me til now. People are people, if you don't like a school then don't send your kids there, but if it's based on a racist preconception then quite honestly you're a prick.

"All you white people"?

So where do I send mixed race DS - to a school where the kids are a 'relevant' shade if brown, irrelevant of race, culture and religion? Any brown but not white, because he isn't 'white'? But that's OK because he will magically have some affinity with these kids because his skin is a bit dark.

I send him to the school that suits his personality and interests.

Yes, of course it's racist.

Unfortunately it's an increasingly common view - I remember being disappointed to hear it (on separate occasions) from two otherwise lovely parents at a toddler group I used to go to.

Yes, I think it's definitely racism. If one of my friends said something like that I'd probably go off them a bit.

Chocolateteacake - that's exactly it, though, you send him to a school which suits him and his interests, not cross schools off your list because there are too many Asians or too many Polish people or whatever.

My comment of "all you white people" was aimed at people who saw it as a Thing To Be Avoided if their kid was the only white in a sea of brown kids, but don't seem to have noticed that for a long time it's been the brown kid in a sea of whites.

(The reality for many of us, of course, is that there's little choice involved at all in "choosing" a school.)

But it's a white country, more or less. If I went to live the the ME I wouldn't say 'sacre bleu! I see brown people!' I'd expect it to be predominantly the local shade. Last school DS was the nearest thing to English in the whole school (OK there was one English/English kid above him).

I know that DH gets mightily pissed off when he is lumped in the 'other' category of 'not white' ethnicity. He has more in common with some white english dude than a bloke from Afghanistan.

Just a thought - these parents who are saying this about the schools - are they more scared of faith schools eg the ones where presumably (I have no idea) Imams teach... etc

are they scared about things like IS and the more radical side of Muslim religion?

As I can sort of see some parents may be scared about their DC unwittingly being integrated into a hardline Muslim school. AFAIK these faith schools wouldn't admit a white kid anyway or would they?

if this is totally unconnected then please slap me down!

Chocolateteacake, the country as a whole is about 87% white, which still leaves an awful lot of non-whites - but there are some cities you can't describe as white at all. I live in London, where about 55% of children are described as "white British". Once you have taken all the posh white kids out to private school, in London state schools there are more non-white kids than white.

It's also true that as times change, what ethnicity people are registered at will change - there's lots of my relatives where I truly have no idea what they'd put on the census.

64 million people in the UK. 2 million 7 hundred thousand Muslims.
Not a very large percentage is it.

Where I was brought up you never saw an African/afro Caribbean. There was one Asian family at our school. Inner cities is not representative of the picture.

I'm not sure how many kids around here are 'white British' but I'd guess a hell of a lot less than 55%. Probably closer to half that.

And it's not 'posh white people' who send their kids private. The African family one side of us, and Singaporean one on the other both do. And as I said, DS isn't 'white'. The school we visited last week was attended by mostly Asian families.

Inner cities don't reflect the UK as a whole, but people can only go to school where they live. It's the people upthread who can't believe there are schools that can be 98% one culture that people are challenging. Of course there are.

I never claimed it was only posh white people who sent their kids private - bit if you look at the stats for London, it's private school which alters the stats for the racial mix in state school.

And cities are representative of themselves. The people there still count.

Chocolateteacake - I'm not even sure we disagree on anything. What would be the problem with you sending your kid to a school with mostly Asian kids in it? Most of them will have been born here. Honest, non-snarky question - I'm genuinely interested in knowing.

ArcheryAnnie "All you white people who have chosen not to have your kids go to a school where they will be in the minority - do you not recognise that this has been the case for most brown people in the UK until very recently? And what do you think your kids will catch if they are in the minority at their school?"

Of course we recognise that being the odd one out could possibly be worrying and isolating, attract some negative attention - why do you think we worry about it for our own children. I see your point but I doubt anyone is disagreeing with you. At my primary in the 70's and 80's there was one mixed race family - the only non white kids at primary and at the 1500 pupil high school. There really wasn't anything we could do about that. But I think most parents would worry a little if their children were the different ones and very much in a minority.

And it's not about catching anything.

I don't have a problem with the genetic makeup if the kids. I don't want to send my kids to a school with a crap Ofsted report or reputation for bullying. Our area is very first gen though, not that this makes a difference (dh wasn't born here either).

I don't think we are disagreeing tbh. I don't like being called 'you white people' though...

To be fair, it was "all you white people who have chosen..." If you haven't or wouldn't choose so, then it wasn't about you, whatever your colour!