Feel like I am surrounded by friends who are always over concerned about the way things look rather than how things actually are. I live in a diverse area. My children go to a school where they are few white British children although their are British children of all different ethnic backgrounds and then lots of newly arrived children from all different countries.
The area is very diverse, there is no majority of people from one particular country. I grew up in a similar area and my school experience was similar. A friend of mine whose children go to the same school recently commented that it makes her sad that the children all mix when younger but then seem to go into friendship groups based on ethnic groups when older. This hasn’t been the experience with my children but I remember something similar when I was at school. I commented that it’s probably quite normal and that often because of cultural or religious reasons people gravitate towards each other. I remember this at school, many of my Muslim friends seemed to want to spend more time together as teens as their families had similar expectations. She was really troubled by this and seemed to think her children might be racist because they are white and hanging out with other white children. I thought this was very silly and doesn’t make you racist!? She seems over concerned about how things look? Her children have never shown any racist behaviour.
My experience at school was that when everyone was a bit older they came together again. It’s not a big deal and people should be friends with people because they like each other not because they don’t want to look racist!