To ask parents of mixed race children…..

[SunsetOverTheBeach]

….. how do you deal with the upset caused by racist incidents?

My son is in his final year of primary. Over the past few months there have been a couple of incidents were racist comments have been directed at him without any provocation (confirmed by staff at school). Different kids each time.

The school have gone through the necessary formalities (officially logging incidents, informing parents etc).

My question is how do you deal with the distress it causes? As a white person born and raised in the UK this is new terrain for me.

He came home heartbroken today.

I have a mixed race baby too young for school and a son who was bullied at school for his hair - not the same but he had all the feelings of shame and wanting to be different. I just told him those kids were being very rude and to always tell the teacher (he did, and the teacher had a talk with the class). We live in a very mixed area so I’m not anticipating issues with the baby but if you’re in a less diverse area I would just try and show him about his heritage and encourage him to be proud of it, as a pp said, and also try for a more diverse environment (the football sounds good, maybe encourage him to make more friends at that).

How does he respond to the comments?

I could have written this post, our plan is to continue visiting the home country of her father so our kids see family that look like her and gets exposure to good role models on mass.

This is really really sad. If you knew you were going to have a mixed race child, wouldn’t you consider your location and the fact that they would be within the minority? It’s really difficult for mixed race/brown/black children to grow up in an area that’s not diverse as they get treated differently. Your DC’s only six years old and she says she hates her skin colour and wants to be white. That’s so sad to read

I’m afraid I’m with PP about the issue being where you live. I get life is complicated, but as someone who grew up as the “only” in my area, I can’t tell you how many ways this can fuck you up as a child, young adult and beyond.

If you really can’t move to somewhere more diverse (where are you that’s this homogenous?) you need to support your son but encourage him to turn to his dad who will have had a lifetime of this.

it’s not enough to worry and feel bad for him; you have to actively take steps to deal with it.

@Opine I didn’t ask for support about how to deal with the racists. If you read the opening sentence of my post it asks fir help dealing with my son’s upset surrounding these incidents.

There is literally no area of the UK that has beyond a handful of people from my ex-husbands nationality it in.

Calling me selfish when you have no idea of the details surrounding my history is awful.

@Suemademedoit

1. his dad has zero experience of this having grown up in his own home country which is possibly one of the most undiverse countries in the world
2. his dad is no longer in the picture - his choice, not mine before I get called out for being selfish in that respect too.

tbf it’s a tricky decision. If your relationship falls apart of course your instinct is to be nearer people that are family/ supportive.

But I would start making much more fuss at the school on behalf of your son.
encourage him to be proud and resilient. Oddly I sometimes worry that my dc haven’t experienced any / much racism and how will they deal with it in the future if faced with it. I learnt to have a thick skin and not rise to it.

Come on. OP could have escaped DV. Bashing her isn’t helpful.

I think you can layer it, OP. Look for opportunities/contacts with your child’s other heritage but also with people from whichever continent/region it is, and other non-white children and role models generally.

Uni towns are great in my book because even in a rural area, that’s where all the international population and culture is or is passing through. Even something like seeing adult men who look a little like him on stage one evening portraying something powerful is another little gobbet for him to file away.

I made it a condition when we left London that we be in or near a university city.

I called my mother selfish. She was. She left a violent marriage but so did I & her sanctuary was my hell.

You asked how to manage racists incidents. Racists are the problem because they’re the creators of the incidents. They’re one and the same.
Your DC having to carry the burden of managing & having to live with their behaviour is going to be to the detriment of their mental health. It’s tough to hear but it’s the truth.

I don’t know what racial group your DC is in but in a diverse area racism is far less likely. It won’t matter what your child is. Racism is usually a problem in all white areas.

Thankfully I kind of didnt have to in that DD has a really supportive group of friends who went NUTS at the kid and his mates and then went marching to the heads office to complain. They basically made it that anyone who made a racist comment in that school would be called out loudly and embarrassingly in the playground. She was upset at what was said and didnt understand why they would say that just based on her colour and we discussed family influence, ignorance, fear etc. And she has white siblings (technically half siblings but we have never made that distinction) so their anger on her behalf, coupled with that of her friends who are mainly white, made her feel better too and helped her realise that not all white people hate all people of colour.

She is now at high school but her oldest siblings left school many years ago and there was a lot more racism then than there is now. Thankfully, far fewer kids grow up with racist parents than they used to as their parents grew up when racism on TV/Media/Institutions etc was being called out by pressure groups, and that filtered down into tthe rest of society. I am in my 50's and racism wasnt even noticed, much less considered, by the predominantly white people I grew up with. I am so much more aware of racism now and I am thankfullyseeing it less and less on a "normal" basis, that is to say using words to describe certain cultures for example that no one would bat an eyelid at then but are considered grossly offensive now. Sadly it will never go away, but as long as there are more people willing to call it out, there will be fewer and fewer people voicing those opinions.

@ItsBritneyBitch45

It is a really sad thing but she is understanding better now and she doesn't make those comments anymore but I do feel like it's something that sits at the back of her mind still but I will continue to teach her.

I've lived in my area for almost 2 decades now and my now DH came from deep South London where it's very diverse. I get what you mean but at the same time why should we have to move just so my kids can live with other kids that looks like her. That kind goes against everything we are trying to teach. I am an immigrant myself and with that logic, I should live with other immigrants. I experienced more racism in those 'diverse areas' where people told me to go back to my country, than the area I am living now. That's just my take on it.

There is literally no area of the UK that has beyond a handful of people from my ex-husbands nationality it in

It doesn't matter if there are not many people that share your ex's nationality if you live to a more diverse area. At DDs school there is a huge mix of Iranian, Chinese, Pakistani, Indian, Somali, Sri lanken, polish, Slovakian, Iraqi, Zimbabwian and many more. I've never heard of a racist incident happening in the school.
You owe it to your child to provide them with the best environment and happiest childhood you can. You need to move.

pinkpotatoez · Yesterday 23:49
SpinningFloppa · Yesterday 23:39
We don’t have any thankfully but we live in a very diverse part of SE London which I’m glad about
Weird thing to be thankful about 😂 I'm not sure if you meant it that way
..........

Fellow SE Londoner here, born and bred. I live on the outskirts and there is a very diverse demographic, I imagine nobody even thinks about race though I haven't done a survey.

It wasn't so good when I was growing up and I know there are racist areas of SE London, closer to the centre of London.

OP, you have my sympathy. All you can do is lobby the school. It is so unfair that your little boy has to endure racist comments from his peers, who are but children themselves and must have picked it up from adults. Instill confidence and self respect in him - I'm sure you do that already.

I have to say I wouldn't care to live in a village like that but if you are settled, home and job wise, there's not much you can do about it.

Good luck.

Credit to you OP for getting out of your marriage. But I’m afraid I agree that you should have factored race into your location decision. Much as you may want to be near your family you need to be in a multicultural city for your DS’s sake. He needs the support of a multicultural community.

Agreed.

I grew up in a white area and racism was shocking but it was decades ago. Then lived in London and Birmingham and experienced no racism. Now back in a quite white area and DS did experience some racism at school.

I raised him to pity the knuckle draggers that they are and be proud of his heritage. That school is a very small though significant part of our lives and that whilst he was in top set for every subject they most certainly were not and would more than likely remain having a small and very insignificant life. He has also seen me in the past stand up to someone in the street and professionally have an interesting job and have taught him to try as many experiences as possible. He found his tribe within air cadets and was the only mixed race child there but it was absolutely brilliant. He did have friends at school and was on the edge of the cool kids. One lad who was hugely popular intervened at one point to back him up.

Every major city is multicultural, OP. London has pretty much lost its Englishness due to the different ethnic and racial mix.

Birmingham is similar as is Manchester & Leeds.

I'm mixed race but look white. Racism was rife when I was a kid. My advice is to teach resilience. I didnt have anyone to teach me, but my parents instilled equality into my thinking. So I taught myself that noone was better than me, that they could think what they liked, their small mindedness was their problem. I got into fights - I never backed down.

I'm proud to be mixed race, it gives me something more than people from one race have. Teach your DS to be proud of his heritage.

Ref school, they need to address the issue. It can be done via the school newsletter or through other comms channels. It just needs to say there have been racially motivated incidents, parents have been advised, but we wanted to be clear with everyone, we have zero tolerance to racism. We believe every child matters and future incidents will be dealt with using exclusion (or whatever the school are comfy with).

Good luck.

I disagree that moving would solve the issue.

OK it would provide a temporary fix for the OP and her child but long term it wont teach the kids who said those things anything and they will grow up to be adults who are racist. Then in adult years her son will encounter them and their kind again out in the big bad world, and then what? Run away? As happened when he was a kid? Sadly racism (and all -isms) will exist due to fear and ignorance and other-ing, and he needs to learn his own way of dealing with it, whilst at the same time having his sadness and anger listened to an acknowledged.

The reason that racism has seen a massive decline in the last 30 years or so (or at least, overt racism spoken aloud) is because of people of all colours and cultures speaking out against it. Going to the school, raising the concerns and insisting that the school educate their students better would have far more impact. There are a lot of really good educational resources available that teach rather than punish when it comes to racism and they have a much better success rate. Punishment simply confirms in the punished child's head that anyone who doesnt look like him is bad because they got him into trouble.

I think if you're stuck in the area/with the schools where you are then all you can do is encourage friendships outside of that - at football, or other extracurricular activities. No, you didn't ask for advice on where to live or multicultural areas but you're hearing from other people who have gone through the same that it does make a difference. If you have any interest in religion - often churches or church schools are more diverse and have more focus on pastoral care than secular schools. We're lucky to live in a diverse commuter town - my children's friendship groups consist of more children that are either not white or not from UK (other european). I know they draw a lot of strength from having mixed race friends or friends from non-white ethnicities as they have that shared experience that no amount of books/films/speeches can replicate. Maybe if you can find a cultural group of your ex-husbands country of origin, even if it is a national/regional group on facebook - they might have meet-ups or that type of thing. Hopefully your ex-husband keeps in touch with you all? Can you share your concerns with him, maybe your ILs might be able to provide some support in helping your DC feel more confident in their cultural origins. I think it is important to still maintain that contact (I understand it wasn't your choice to separate) just so that you don't become isolated from that side of DCs family.

@georgarina I read it as thankful they didn't have mixed kids🤣🤣 I know realise my mistake

Now*

I hope things improve for your child OP and you get the answers you need. Why did you only ask parents of mixed race children?

I ensured there was enough diversity or at least high literacy where we lived, where he studied and in the hobbies he attended.

Being in such a varied environment helped him to learn with racism.
…. but then, I would never choose to live in a small white village where racism is all around but where your child will be constantly told “they didn’t mean it that way..” everytime he has been a victim of racist abuse.

😂Don't worry we're all sleep deprived on this site