Moving to a mainly white area?

[TTCNumber3uk]

I am a single white female with two mixed race children. I have the opportunity to move to a very affluent area however having looked it up, the demographics are 98% white and I’m hesitant to move my children to an area where they will be massively in the minority and not have the opportunity to be part of a cultured society or, to be simple, to see others that are the same as them. I don’t want them growing up feeling othered, if that makes sense?

just looking for thoughts/opinions

Black with black family. DD's best friend is mixed race (black dad and white mum). We live in a white majority nice little town and we've never had any problems. I suppose our experience is in the minority.

I'm mixed race and the primary school that I went to was 100% white. Secondary school was about 99.9% white. I never had any issue at either, and I didn't feel that I missed out on anything particularly.

I do have a quite light skin, and its impossible to say whether my experience would have been different if I'd had darker skin, although I would hope not. I wouldn't let it put you off though.

Ño don't- these people can be some of the most racist ones earth

It won't be fair on your children

I'm white with mixed race children. I can understand your hesitation. I've loved living in an extremely mixed area with lots of other mixed race children. Mine just think that's the norm, and I'm happy it hasn't been an issue for them.

In my experience there is no point checking with the school.

I had to pull my kids out of their school as they did nothing about the racism. They didn't even report it to the board of governors as their policies stated they would (I know this for a fact). They don't want it to be seen that there is any racism at their school and they brush it under the carpet.

In addition, unless the staff and pupils are black, they won't see the casual racism!

I have mixed race children. We lived in an affluent, majority white area of London- my child had her first racist comment aged 3. We decided we didn't want to expose the children to that environment and moved to a diverse city elsewhere. We have no regrets

I personally prefer services (hospital, banks, libraries, etc) in white majority areas to diverse ones because of the way we're treated by service providers and professionals of other races, including black ones. We've had more racist incidents from people of other races here than white people. Fewer still compared to London.

We've lived all over the UK so I can compare.

I’m white, my child isn’t mixed race. I grew up in a very white area of my city but for the last 15 years have lived in the most ethnically diverse area.

Racist comments white colleagues have openly shared with me about the area I live in are not ones I have been silent on in response. But they are there, and it makes me quite wary of all white areas. As I say, I am white, but my outlook is not the same and I wouldn’t want to live alongside those who have it. I would not want my child to pick that mentality up by osmosis.

I'm white, but I lived in an affluent multicultural city for several years with dc. Whilst the city did not have that many black families, there were loads of other cultures, polish, Swedish, Portuguese, German so quite eclectic, but wouldn't necessarily be reflected in numbers. Very inclusive overall.

I would visit the area/ schools/ town etc and see what you think and what dc think.

Mine (white) is at a faith based school in a predominantly white area and there are 5 black children out of a class of 26 and I do believe that colour has no barrier in our school. My dc is best fiends with such a lovely little girl who happens to be black, she's friends with another 2 and doesn't really play with the other 2. Colour doesn't come into it for her (or us) as she's been raised to enjoy company rather than judge. In honesty I feel the majority of the school is this way (I can't say 100% as I know how some judgy people can be).

I also grew up in a faith school with few black, Asian and mixed race children and I remember it being the norm.

Teach your kids to be proud of who they are and any other kids are lucky to have them as friends x

@spacemumm you have to be kidding. I know you aren’t but…🤯

My child is bestfriends with a black child, she too can get left out at school and social things and what really wound me up was one of the teachers kids is a school counselor and the little shit had told her she was not allowed to play with her. We are in a predominantly white area.

It also depends on school, not just on the town. Was talking to a mum from ds2 football team, 14 year olds re how her ds has really struggled. My ds's are completely white, (ds2 is ginger) and all throughout primary and secondary so many friends - children, many many mixed race (black dad, white mum), polish, Malaysian, he thinks nothing of it. The 2 schools are metres apart. So yes, it does make a difference.

I had a similar but reversed situation - we were living in an area of London when DD was born where she would have been the only white child in her school year (and whole key stage). We chose to move because while we obviously had no issue with the diversity of the area, I didn't want DD to be so totally different or be a teaching point at school. We moved to an area where there was much more of a mix, which was perfect.

It's tricky. We live in a very diverse area and my DDs best friend goes to the local school which is probably 90% black kids. She's white blonde and has had a really really hard time. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable doing that to my child. Whatever demographic you are, I think sending them to a school where they're a minority is really really hard. Mixed kids already have it quite hard as they struggle to fit in in either demographic.

Thank you so much for your responses and thinking points. The area is sandbanks down in Dorset and my gut feeling is that as mentioned casual racism would be pretty bad along with those who had the gall to be upfront in their prejudice as well. I find it tricky as a white single mum I could never understand properly the experiences of my girls if I moved somewhere like this and they had to experience casual/covert racism.

back to the drawing board I think!

My dd is mixed heritage black and white. We’re moving to Poole in the summer. It used to be very white but is a more mixed population. Sandbanks is a short distance from Poole so maybe look there rather than Sandbanks specifically.

Thank you for this, I will definitely be looking there as well and expanding my search

It sounds as though you're in the fortunate position to have choice in the matter. In that case I'd say for the benefit of your kids try to find/maintain a diverse neighbourhood and school as you practicably can. Racism for your children, especially, won't manifest itself in huge ways like being called the n-word when walking through town (it might, but in the UK it doesn't tend to work like that on a day to day basis); in the UK it's more a case of death by a thousand paper cuts. And because nothing expressly racist was done or said then you find yourself in the mind-numbing position of knowing how you feel or think about something that happened but having no words to explain or justify it to others. These things are really what eat away at the soul for many PoC.

I used to think like you. Then I read "Why I'm no longer talking to white people about race" by René Eddo Lodge and it completely changed my thinking. I realised how totally wrong it is for a white person to say they don't see colour, or colour doesn't come into it. You need to read this book, it'll revolutionise your thinking and you'll understand @Opine 's point.

Sandbanks. Overrated, soulless, characterless.

I'm sure you mean well spacemum but this world view is entirely the stuff of make believe.

I can see both sides.
We moved to a massively white area when my kids were small (Pakistani, me white) and we never experienced an issue. Kids lots of friends, very happy. Now this are is really mixed! Part of me feels like if no one moves, nothing changes.
i went to a predominately black high school and suffered a lot (that’s an understatement).
On a superficial level we all need to move together to move forward, on a fundamental level you need to just do what’s best for your kids.
My son was talking to me about this the other day and said that he never felt racism as a kid growing up where we did. He is only now experiencing it as an adult when he is always stopped and searched in airports etc.

It also depends on school, not just on the town.

Definitely the case here (outer NW London/Herts). Predominantly white area but the prep school we chose was 90% Asian (we're white).

On one level, it made no difference but there were a few families that never invited my sons over, even if they were good friends with their kids.

We moved from South London (where, incidentally, DD1 was the only white kid in her class at one point and it had no effect on her whatsoever) to somewhere else far less ethnically diverse. It’s a lovely place and a lovely school but we definitely notice that DD2 talks about things that DD1 never noticed. Recent comments have included ‘x is Muslim but she’s still really nice’ - about one of her friends. ‘I feel sorry for Y because they can’t sing in the Christmas concert because their parents won’t let them’ - said Christmas event was carols sung in church which would have been unthinkable at our London primary. Our daughter likes her classmates but is very clearly aware of differences in this environment. She has three friends who are not British (two are Muslim) and we talk about aspects of that at home quite often but I realise that none of this happened with DD1 because there was so much diversity in her school that it didn’t feel like it does here - that there is a ‘norm’ that diversity is measured against. OP, I think that would be such a different dynamic for your kids.