To expect my white dd not to be an ethnic minority in her own country

[squatchette]

First of all i would like to make it clear that i am in no way racist.My childrens father is half asian (although he is also an irish catholic too).
Anyway today i was late dropping DD2 at pre school and i got to see her whole class for the first time.This is when i was shocked to realise that she is the only white child in her class.
I think i was shocked as we don't live in a particularly ethnic area or so i thought.I read in the schools ofsted report that 40 % of the kids in the school speak English as a second language.
At first i thought it would be good that she can mix with children of different races and i am all for a diverse society.However something about the fact that she is the minority has worried me.AIBU?

I have not read much beyond the OP but it always strikes me how so many people worry so much about children not speaking the language of the country... The children are going to end speaking it anyway and very soon. It is far easier for the child to assimilate the local language than for him to continue developing the mother tongue.

FWIW my child speaks 3 languages and English is his better one even when we don't speak it at home. He was also quite ahead in talking in English compared to other children in his nursery whose mother language was English. The children with ESL will talk at the same level as any other children around them, and will feel part of the group unless some people, with bad or good intentions, keep pointing up at the differences.

However, I understand about being worried about being the "odd one out", children tend to get a bit nasty with children that look slightly different to those they are used to have around, be it due to race, personal habits, or the wrong brand of shoes. So I supose all the question is about being the "Odd one out" rather than the only white child in a classroom?

I think that your concerns make more sense now that you have explained them Squashette, but I think everything will be fine. As I see it, your concern is just the very normal one that your child will be the 'odd one out', and you chose a rather unfortunate way to express it. As others have said, odd one out can be many things- being black/white/ginger/blonde/short sighted/tall/short/thin/fat....

For what it's worth, I don't think that language will cause a problem in making friends. As others have said, even if the children you observed were not speaking English to each other it doesn't mean that (i) they would exclude your daughter by not speaking to her if she tried to join a group or (ii) that children cannot often play happily without speaking the same language (there was a funny incident when my brother was small when he had been happily playing with a child for half an hour on the beach. It was only when the two mum's wandered over and started to speak to each other that it transpired the other boy was French and spoke no English. My brother spoke no French).

Have you tried talking to your daughter about how she's enjoying pre-school? Does she seem to be making friends?

Have opposite concern to OP I guess - we about to move from ethnically diverse London to the south west where I am originally from for lots of good reasons. However one of the main things I have loved about London is having met and befriended people from all over the world and realised how narrow my upbringing was in that regard. Feel abit sad that DD likely to be in an all white school you definitely miss out. We look white English but DH german.

Just noticed my rogue apostrophe with horror. Having contributed to the pedants thread, I must now flog myself for not proof reading and allowing such typos to slip through!

Once again i will repeat i chose the pre school as i want my daughter to be able to mix with a wide range of races and cultures as i am all for a diverse society.
Aside from my title which was completely out of order , ill thought out and appologised for why do so many people here have me down as a bigot and racist?
To clarify one final time i was worried that my daughter being the only non asian muslim would be the odd one out.
Someone asked how my DP feels about all of this. As a mixed race child growing up in the 70's he knows only too well what it can be like to be the one who is different.We had many heated debates over which school to send our girls to .He wanted the Catholic Primary down the road i wanted this school mainly because of its diverse community.We put the catholic school down as our first choice(it had a fantastic ofsted report) but didn't get it.
I really don't want to be known as the MNer who started the racist thread maybe a name change is in order.
And of course this country belongs to the other children in my dds class as much as anyone else.In future i shall certainly pick my words more carefully.Sorry for any offence caused it truly was not intended.

Well my ds who is 4 is the onle white and the only non-Bengali child in his class of 30. I feel sorry for him (although have never ever remarked on this to anyone else other than DH as know I would be jumped on).

I feel sorry for him because of the 3 or 4 friends he has made, none speak English. He is always asking me why so and so "can't talk". Whether you like it or not, children and adults tend to gravitate towards people with whom they have something in common.

Whilst obviously many different races have lots in common, the Bengali community is a hard one to break into. I sent out 29 invites to his birthday party and didn't get a single solitary reply.

OMG the woman choose the wrong title and she is racist!! a bit ignorant, a bit niave perhaps.

The world has gone politically correct.

That's so sad, chocolatedot.
One thing that might help (should you be brave enough again) is to get someone who can write Bengali script (not sure what that is, perhaps like Urdu?) for part of the invite. And make it clear that the food will be Halal.

All the invites were in Urdu and English - the teachers are utterly fab and v eager to help. The Halal thing didn't occur to me because of course I wouldn't have served any inappropriate food. All my attempts to arrange playdates have been rebuffed and I just feel sad for him. The fact of the matter is though that it's purely a cultural thing, nothing to do with race.

That's a pisser. We lived in a mostly Bangladeshi Asian neighbourhood before and DS did make friends, who did come to his 4yo b'day party. Maybe because they were nearby neighbour kids only living a few houses away, and I always chatted to their mums even when they were veiled.

ChocolatDot - my DH is Arabic (I'm English) and he has some Bengali friends and its not just you - its a really closed community! In fact, I've gone as far to tell DH that one of his Bengali friends is racist towards English people as some of the comments about English people that he says - not just
jokes, but with venom, really annoy me!

It upsets me really as a lot of Ethnic groups talk about 'integration' but I'm finding more and more that they are the ones less willing to integrate!

why does colour matter? Children are children no matter what their colour, I don't understand why it matters.

Of course I do try and chat to the other mothers but most wear the full niqab which makes it hard to get to know them. They also mostly live on one estate and we are about 10 mins the other direction.

Thanks Crookshanks, it's really nice to get a bit of reassurance. I do try very very hard but get nowhere.

actually law it's not just the title. It's the op and the premise on which it's based! Trust me... I'm not politically correct and I think PC gone mad is such a cop out.

What she said was offensive. She came back and rephrased what she said but I have to say.... it still doesn't sit right. She's apologised for offence caused and I accept that even though I still think too little too late. I was the black child surrounded by white children. My children live in an area full of white children and they are in the minority. Perhaps I should worry that their lives are being blighted in some way and perhaps I should mourn that mine was as well, but I don't and I won't! I got on with growing and learning and accepting people. My children do the same. They are surrounded by their friends. DS1 goes to a school which is 75% Asian. English is the second language for many of those children (of course that could just be my assumption), but they speak their second language far better than many "English" people speak their first.

If you agree with what she's saying then have the balls to say it and don't throw in the pc gone mad card!

Well said ML, bloody well said!

Political Correctness is an attempt to redress wrongs committed against those who have been disadvantaged in society as a result of discrimination, or percieved differences (gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, disability).

Notice I did not add 'race' to that list; 'race' is a social construct -- it does not exist in any biological sense, only in a social sense. The only differences amongst human beings are the artificially drawn lines between 'us' and 'them' for whatever reason. In terms of genetics, only a minute number of genes are responsible for skin colour, and there are far, far more similarities amongst humans than differences.

Thus, political correctness in itself is not something to be jeered at. on the one hand, I understand people getting upset by this and there have seen instances where what has been served under the title of PC ammounts to little more than thought policing. However, that 'pc gone mad' line trivialises an important goal and seems to miss the point of political correctness, which seems to me to be two-fold: avoid offending people, and don't discriminate. I don't think there is much that is 'mad' about that.

What should be examined here instead are the attitudes that expose racism, something which indeed does exist. By racism, I mean having or demonstrating the mistaken belief that there are biological or other differences amongst human groups that separate 'us' from 'them', including this notion of 'own country', as well as the idea that 'they' do it to 'us'. As so many posters have said, who exactly are 'we' and who are 'they'?

Lastly, just because someone has had contact with a person of another ethnic or cultural background does not mean that they do not harbour beliefs which are inherently racist or xenophobic. Neither is it an excuse to say that someone is just ignorant rather than racist. Racist attitudes should be challenged and the underlying attitudes exposed.

In the two most recent jobs I did before I had dd, I was "the only white face" in the team. I have never worked in a better team or been happier at work. I wished I had had that sort of experience growing up.

I did find however difficulty doing anything sociable outside of work - maybe it would just have taken me a little longer to get my head round those cultural differences. Again, maybe if I'd had the same experiences early on, instead of being in the white middle class home counties, it would have been a bit different.

I hope your dd settles in brilliantly.

I second that, freya. I lived in Brixton for a few years, and as a white person who had always been anti-racist, it was a huge shock to me to realise that just living in an area in which white people are not in an absolute majority made me very twitchy at first. It was really invaluable for me, in that it made me question my attitudes towards ethnicity: up until that point I had been very complacent about it, I think. For a white person, in a country in which white people will be in a significant majority in most social, educational, professional settings, the experience of being in an ethnic minority can be very valuable. It certainly was for me, anyway.

My ds is thew only white boy in his class, my dd is one of 2 white children in hers - the other child is polish and speaks polish first, and is starting to learn english now. Neither of them have been helf back at all by the fact they have different skin colours or languages to the others, they have made loads of friends and are having a great time at school. I,. on the other hand, have really struggled to make friends with the other parents in their classes - I have tried my damndest to invite people for coffee after morning drop off, to invite them in for tea after school, i have even changed the way I walk home from school so that its longer home to my house but so i walk along with some of the mums who live on the estate near the school. There are different groups, split very much alongh raise / culture / religation lines, and there seems to be very little cross over. I would love to be friends with these women, not just for my own selfish reasons that it would be great to have someone to txt if I'm running late and say could you hand onto ds/dd for me for 5 mins / will we go out for a drink / meal/ whataver to celebrate end of term , but also to be able to make play dates for my kids regulary, not the once in a blue moon situation we have now. I don't really know what to do, and believe me, I have tried EVERYTHING - even learning hello in Arabic, polish and sylheti and trying it out - people are polite, but they are not my friend. I have,. shamefully, retreated into a group of other white, british, middle class mums from other classes throughout the school and i have a great time with them, but it seems like a lost oppurtunity. Anyway, at least all our kids will not haev the same issues!

I would have had this issue if I'd stayed living where I lived before moving. I have lived and worked in a diverse multicultural environments. There are good and bad people in every walk of life.

I didn't want my child going to a school where the majority of children speak english a a second language because I don't think he would acheive as much I he might do in an all english speaking school.

I think the issue here is not a race issue as such but that any person will want their child to have the best education possible and at present in some areas there are so many NEW migrants that communities are struggling to integrate and get established.

I think that english should be learnt by all migrants (if able to) and then the barriers to integration will come down and people will be less alienated.

I remember seing a movie when I was a child that was about some famous American man who devoted most of his life fighting for the rights of those of Afro American origin.(apologies if it is not the correct name). Anyways, at some point, his teenage son asks him "Father, are you racist" and the man say "Yes, I am. But I am doing all this so you and your generation don't be".

Everytime people complains about political correctnes I remember the above. After all, a child that grows in an environment where derogatorty racist/sexist/classist/etc comments are expressed in a regular basis he is very likely to become a very racist/sexist/classist/etc individual.

Whereas a child who grows somewhat distanced from that prejudice either because his parents do not share those ideas or because they do not speak about them openly, is likely to grow a more tolerant/respectful/accepting individual than his parents are

So yes, it may be a nuisance but, political correctness is what will make our society advance to be a more tolerant/respectful of each other differences/inclusive one.

CHandra - what a great post! couldn't agree more.

I think everyone has a touch of prejudice in them, whether they admit it or not. The alienation some feel when dealing with a muslim wearing the burka? Walking past a youth with a hooded top and baseball cap?
What about ginger people, the amount of stick they get? And people just laugh. Or me, the most palest skin you can get, people always say: you'd look better with a tan, why so I look more healthy? Not really healthy is it? What if I was to say, you'd look better with a bit lighter skin? Totally unheard of and obviously an offensive and ridiculous comment to make.
With regards to the OP, I think it probably boils down to the shock with which the face of our new society is changing, peopkle can feel uneasy with change especially dramatic change. We have had very high levels of immigration, the demographics are changing, the people here will on the whole intergate (hopefully, like most cultures have that have come to these shores in the past).
~I think there is a worry for parents of children who find there kids are being taught amonst a high level of children where english is a second language, as this means that as the class get taught as a whole, the class performance would not be as good, the children whose english as second language will take up more of the teachers time as they get up to speed with the language as well as the curriculum.
Now if you cannot understand that and believe that the only issue is one of culturally putting arms arround the world, you need see it from another perspective.