To be worried about dd1 being the only non white in her class

[Rory786]

We moved from multicultural London to a very rural village. DD1 (4yrs) will be in a village school, and one of 8 pupils in her class. We went to visit and we got a lot of stares.
AIBU to be worried for her?
She will have two younger sisters joining eventually (but they are 20 months and 7 months now)

Bit bemused by the pp who said My observation is that in certain circles no one gives a darn what colour your skin is or where you are from. These are normally upper middle class groups of people who are highly educated. Outside of this circle you are more likely to encounter problems.
I don't think this is true at all!

You won't know what will happen until you move to the village and get to know people.

But what will you do if the residents are 'isolationist' or ignorant? Will you move again or expect your children to put up with whatever comments come their way?

Agreed Str4ngedaysindeed

The upper middle class racists are just too polite to say anything to your face.

It is nice to think that people could be colourblind for ever but unfortunately that is not the case. Your concerns are valid OP. The endearing charm that a 4year old black or Asian child might produce from an adult will not be the same that an 8 or 11 year old would. This means that although people in the village may not be so warm to the child being cheeky on their scooter on the way to the shops, whereby an unpleasant racial remark may happen. Hence their experience changes with age OP. I'm always amazed when people have no personal experience of isolation and the frustration that follows it can be so quick to shut down the discussion. Later OP you may need to have at least one other parent who understands and who can truly console.

The pp who said that the OP should have thought it through before moving- you have to be reasonable, many careers require people to move around nowadays. Many 2 and 3rd generation people of Asian, Caribbean and African heritage will make an area diverse due to their relocation. Think about your doctors, engineers, scientists, academics etc- all very diverse professions.

Another point is that when people say ethnically diverse and include Eastern Europeans, they, according to a BBC radio 4 documentary on the changing face of the UK, don't consider themselves to be ethnically different to the white British population. It seems a bit complicated, but essentially the white population across Europe does not consider itself to be part of the diversity. (Programme by Gary Younge on BbC radio 4), and as such they (it's not a homogeneous group I know) cannot understand the vitriol that surrounded Brexit. Furthermore back in many countries like Poland, it is the non Caucasians who experience racism, rarely other white ethnicities e.g. White American, white French, white Dutch etc.

Gravy, there's nothing wrong with sharing your views on these kinds of issues and I believe it's very important to have these kinds of conversations. I also quite liked your earlier post and I agree OP would've been encouraged by it. Unfortunately, this issue is quite a fraught one for obvious reasons so it's true that may put people off sharing their views. I didn't mean to 'chastise' anyone but I did feel a need to refer to a language usage which is quite alienating and, if you consider that everyone has an ethnic identity, not even strictly 'correct' for want of a better word. I've lost count of the number of times I've come across the term 'ethnic hair'. Makes you wonder, 'ethnic' as opposed to what? And this is the root of the sensitivity. Sometimes even innocently used words can be so loaded, and I think it's good to be aware of how certain terms come across. That's all wanted to convey really.

I also live in a predominantly white british vilage OP, and can understand your concerns. The only racism I have ever heard in the village was from a group of men in the pub (aged 50 plus) at around the time UKIP were campaigning heavily around here. We even had Nigel bleeding Farage calling in for a pint at said pub.

On the plus side, my NDN's are African, and dd's best friend at school is Polish, and to the very best of my knowledge neither have encountered any problems at all. Both families have integrated well, and our neighbours and their kids have lots of friends. Dd's friends mum is struggling a little because of a language barrier but things are getting better as her English improves adn her friendship group is getting better.

I'm sure your dd will be fine. Enjoy your new home

put people off sharing their views

Gaspard's critique on non-PC language does exactly that.

By the way, I have 'ethnic hair' myself.

Thank you again for all your comments, its really interesting to hear your experiences.
We are all the same race in our house. dd1 does go to playgroup every day with her sisters. We will all miss her when she goes to school and I hope she has a lovely experience.
Thats what you want for your children isn't it? For them to have a loving and happy childhood.

Rory from what I have heard from non-white adults growing up in places like this - it can be hard not having friends from the same ethnicity as yourself, but it is even harder having nobody at home who looks like you. This is what I worry about with my DC but your family is a bit different to ours obviously.

I grew up in a very white Irish village (there was very little diversity in Ireland when I was growing up, which has obviously changed in recent years). During my years in school a Japanese family and a mixed race (African/Irish) family started. They were initially treated as exotic (to be fair so was a girl who moved from America and so had a different accent) but within a few weeks they were just accepted as part of the the school.

I now live in multicultural London and my DD goes to a multicultural nursery- staff and children have a multitude of backgrounds. I don't think she even notices that her friends all look different- she mentions hair colour/eye colour but never really skin colour strangely enough. They also celebrate every religious festival for every religion represented at nursery so we get frequent baked goods sent home!

It really depends on what the rest of this village is like. I'm not white but have lived in mostly-white villages where people get excited to see someone different. Also racism can be experienced slightly differently for both girls and boys in that if a girl is really pretty for ex or a boy is great at football/cricket for ex it can be overlooked. For example growing up my sister could've been a ringer for J LO and was always surprised when I told her about my racist experiences at some places- because she never experienced the same.

teaaddict I would not say that being Eastern European and rocking up to the local village is the same as having a different skin colour and doing the same, I'm sure it's a very different experience. However, given my children have had various insults said to them for being Eastern European at school age, told to 'go home to where they came from', I think it's not true to say they blend seamlessly in. Having a foreign accent is also a big deal in some places, however much people may 'like you when they get to know you'. I understand why some of the people on that programme may identify as white majority culture, they are hoping if they are that, they will not be seen as immigrants, targeted and so on. This does not mean they aren't seen differently, especially in less diverse and more narrow-minded parts of the country. My husband ran a business in one, where if he answered the phone with his strong accent, people would put the phone down or not make an appointment, but if I answered the phone which I started doing, made the appointment, he turned up and was very nice, his clients liked him a lot. They were often older and people being 'foreign' was just something they found threatening.

We now live in a big city again and much prefer it to small town life precisely because of this- we blend in, there's loads of cultures and communities, and being 'foreign' is less remarkable. Much more relaxing for us.

A very close friend is in this situation - DC only non-white children in the village, plus one has SEN. There hasn't been a problem with racism at all - unless stereotypes about Asian people being quiet and good at maths contributed to difficulties getting a diagnosis for her eldest.

Don't downplay how it used to be, before the anti-discrimination laws.
I hope the backlash against "PC" doesn't mean kids suffer like I did:

I was the first ever non-white kid at an English rural primary school in the 1960s, nice respectable prosperous village. No unemployed or homeless there, so no excuse that "furrin" was harming their lives in any way.
Sheer misery.
I hated every single day of school.

I was subject to racial insults most days - being surrounded, pushed about and called "wog" by the other pupils.
No rules about non-PC language in those days.
Teachers only intervened once in 4 years, when it was so loud the headmaster could hear "Wog, dirty wog" in his study.

I was totally excluded socially, no friends. Very rarely allowed to join in the playground games.
The other kids had party invitations, exchanged Xmas cards every year. In my 4 years there, I received only 1 invitation to a birthday party and that was a pity thing by the parents, because my dad had just died.

Worse of all one teacher was racist, fortunately only 1 lesson a week qith her, but I dreaded it because of the spiteful criticism and smacking - that was allowed then.
I didn't dare speak in her class, so she invented insults to smack me. Once she sent me to the head for caning. I had done nothing whatsoever, except be non-white.

That's what happened before discrimination was banned, when people had absolute freedom to say what they wanted.
Long before the internet, so those kids copied attitudes from their parents & neighbours.

Agree BigChocFrenzy. Dad was declined a mortgage in the 70s because the bank manager didn't think p*s could hold down a job.

BigChoc what an awful awful experience for you, sadly one that rings very true to me having seen my friends who were non-white get a lot of nasty comments, I wonder if you were from my part of the country (rural, no big cities) which was very white and very racist at that time as well.

I can only say my ds is best friends with the on;y none white boy in his class..They have been best friends since year one..He has occasionally commented on his friends darker skin ..He is aware but thinks no differently about him ( as he shouldn't ) because of his background or colour of his skin.. Kids are far more open than adults...

Another child joined from another country...He bought food in from that country. It was all new and exciting. I have even text mum for a recipe so he could make something the other child bought into school. Kids loves something or someone new.

What are you worried about?

when people had absolute freedom to say what they wanted

You are conflating the issues.

The society you grew up in was racist, and people exercised freedom of speech.

We no longer have freedom of speech. Does this mean that racism no longer exists?

Freedom of speech goes both ways. You call me the n word and I can call you the c, f, i, s words and if I feel really strongly about it I could report you to your employer too. People who complain about PC don't see it from the other person's perspective usually.

their parents did a piss poor job of bringing them up

It's possible that some individuals didn't have the advantage of an education that taught "PC speak."

I think she'll be fine. As a PP mentioned, kids are more interested in similarities and differences and that was definitely true for me. I had a close friend all the way through primary school, who had brown skin and eyes but a very British name. We used to pretend that we were sisters because (to us) we were very similar - tall for our age, good at reading, long hair... It took an older child mentioning her Asian father for me to realise that we weren't the same, and I must have been about eight or nine by then.

similarities THAN differences, that should have said