Just got told that I'm racist toward my own child

[jumpiin]

I was at the park with my son, not many people there just one other lady with her two kids. I smiled at her on the way in and she gave me a dirty look. Bit strange but just ignored it. I was playing and we were having a great time, we were laughing and I called him a cheeky monkey affectionately. This lady storms over to me and tells me not say that around her children (she was black for the record) she was very rude and stood right in my face. I asked her what the problem was and she gave me a big speech I can't exactly how she worded it as I'm fuming but she basically said, me calling my own baby a cheeky monkey was racist because he's mixed, she also said that I was ignorant and that I needed to educate myself because I know nothing about my own child's race. She then told me that I'm "just another one of those girls who thinks a brown baby is an accessory". She then stormed off and I've come straight home as the afternoon was ruined and I'm still reeling! I assume she made these assumptions because I'm white, I've taken the time to learn about my DPs culture and DS is learning to speak English and Swahili and as for seeing him as an accessory that's just ridiculous, he is the most precious and important thing in my life. Aibu to think that she was in the wrong here and that she is a part of the problem? And to think that I can call my child whatever I want as long as there's no malice behind it?!

Yes Shaken.

The difference between calling your child a cheeky monkey and using monkey as a racist insult is that one refers to disposition and one to appearance.

When you call a child a cheeky monkey you are saying they are cheeky like a monkey, because monkeys are known to be cheeky.

That's how I would use the phrase anyway.

Ignore it 100 per cent OP.....you stumbled across an unhinged one!

Yes @dickybow321 because things like this never happen irl right?! Your ignorance is astonishing. @shakenandangry it said 'coolest monkey in the jungle' and that was the only slogan that they had used a black child to model , so slightly different. I understand the offence taken over that much more

My friend, child of windrush generation, descendants of slaves, treated as less than human, came here aged 12 in 1960 and had to fight in the playground every day, with people manhandling them to try and look at their tail. Anyone calling their child cheeky monkey would get a good slap.
Kick racism out of football still trying to stop idiots throwing bananas and making 'monkey noises'. We have a long way to go.

But Missing, that is proper racism, cheeky monkey isn't. It's a term used in relation to behaviour not colour.

This womans behaviour is so dangerous to the the cause of addressing genuine racism and stamping it out. It achieves nothing and makes black people a laughing stock. A perfect example of a semi illiterate who has a little bit of knowledge but not a full understanding of it.

No doubt all the cheeky monkey day nurseries should close down at once. God help the ones with the black kids in it....law suits galore!

I really don’t care whether one is POC or white but nobody should be using the term ‘cheeky monkey’ when addressing a child who is black/mixed race out in public.

Yes, I get it that you had great intentions etc etc but the fact is that many people have had years of misery inflicted by terms similar.

Frankly speaking, it is our colonial midset that tells us that calling a black/mixed race child that term is ok - despite knowing the suffering it has caused. But hey, it is ok because our white master says it comes from a place of love.

I don’t know about stuff like this....it’s all so very tricky.

Obviously if we accept your post at face value, OP (and I’m struggling, tbh) you are not racist and that woman was an ignoramus.

But we live in a racist society - a fundamentally, structurally racist society where white privilege is an actual, measurable, visible thing. It’s not just an academic theory, it’s a fact lived by every single PoC every single day.

Most white people in this country, me included, are not racist in the “I hate black people” sense of the word, but that’s not really what PoC are talking about when they discuss racism & it’s not what we should all be focussing on until/unless such explicit hatred is expressed. It’s the implicit, subconcious stuff that’s doing the most damage.

We cannot hope to live in the kind of equal society we mostly all want until those of us granted privilege because of our skin colour confront and address the fact of it. Not to do so is, when all is said and done, racist.

Calling a black person a monkey is racist. We all know that. There isn’t really any logical way of claiming that the racism is reduced the smaller the person. Yes, an individual may not be expressing racial hatred when they call a small child a “cheeky monkey” but what about when they are? Because “monkey” when applied to a human being usually IS racist.

Given that most of the world’s population would be seriously and justifiably offended to be called a monkey, it seems pretty obvious that we should stop using the world to describe any human being at all.

It’s not racist on the face of it to call a small child a cheeky monkey but it is racist not to understand or care about the issue when people try and talk about it.

These things do matter.

YANBU, and when I was a kid I got a monkey mask from a recent birthday party and would never take it off, we were out in public and waiting at the car from my older sister to come back from a shop and I was doing monkey impressions to anyone walking past and then I did it to a black man walking past and my mum had to apologise to the guy but I had no idea what the issue was when i was a kid

She sounds as though she has a problem with mixed race relationships. Which definitely doesn’t make you the racist one.

Ah fair enough- thought it sounded familiar

Calling a black person a monkey is racist. We all know that. There isn’t really any logical way of claiming that the racism is reduced the smaller the person
No one was trying to do that.

*This womans behaviour is so dangerous to the the cause of addressing genuine racism and stamping it out. It achieves nothing and makes black people a laughing stock. A perfect example of a semi illiterate who has a little bit of knowledge but not a full understanding of it.

No doubt all the cheeky monkey day nurseries should close down at once. God help the ones with the black kids in it....law suits galore! hmm*

FINALLY a person who speaks some sense!!

Racism - Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior

"OhThisAgain

I really don’t care whether one is POC or white but nobody should be using the term ‘cheeky monkey’ when addressing a child who is black/mixed race out in public.
"

Tough - I shall continue to call my mixed kids 'monkeys', in private and public.
This mindset of saying we cannot say certain things etc is racist. Because it places race at the center of the discussion when actually race is completely irrelevant in this context.

Excellent post, Tabby.

But I do wonder what we should do now we can't say "banana" in public any more. What should we call them?

Cheeky is just not a thing that most Americans say. It would sound like you were affecting a British accent. We do, however, sometimes refer to our kids as little monkeys.

@oblada completely