To think that if you’re the white parent of a mixed race child in the U.K., you should educate yourself about race issues and racism?

[Yabberwocky]

Just that, really. You should make an active and consistent effort to inform yourself, try to understand what your child might be dealing with, recognise microaggressions, that sort of thing.

I’ve been musing about my own childhood and upbringing. Wondered what people thought.

The OP hasn't had issues with other clearly white posters on this thread who have mixed raced children.

So maybe it is how you engage with posters discussing an issue that is at fault.

@ThereSnowLimit I think you have completely misunderstood what was said. When previous posters and myself suggested there are some conversations that should take place in a safe space it was not to suggest that white parents of mixed children shouldn’t comment on the topic. It wasn’t really a response to anything anyone else has said at all.

It’s more that we know when we have criticisms of our own communities there are certain elements who will co-op these in a wholly negative and unhelpful way to attack poc. Therefore, sometimes it’s better to limit these conversations to members of our communities and others who we know will have these discussions in good faith rather than leave ourselves open to that. An open forum doesn’t meet that requirement.

She didn’t need to educate herself on it to understand how it affects people. It’s called emotional intelligence.

In the same way that many of us may not have experienced the loss of parent. We don’t need to educate ourselves on that or experience it, to have an understanding of the emotions and feelings that would create for someone going through it.

I find it strange that you’re arguing with me about MY mother who you don’t know and are therefore not in a position to determine how she has the understanding of racism that she has.

So, your mother learnt nothing about racism from your father? Either directly or by observation?

Nothing she wasn’t already aware of by the time she’d met him.

She didn’t live her life with her head in the sand.

You can witness things throughout life that all manner of people experience and be able to gain understanding from that.

You don’t need to specifically go out and make a conscious effort to educate yourself on something (as the OP suggested) to gain an understanding. Which is my point. That seems to constantly be missed 🙄

I’m actually done with this thread now to be honest.

Your mother knew so much about racism that there was nothing left to be learnt from her Black partner? She had learnt everything there was to know about it before she met him? That’s quite a feat.

It’s also interesting as your first comment on the thread specifically credited her knowledge to her having married interracially: She didn’t need to educate herself further on racism. She knows what racism is. She is in an interracial marriage.

You keep saying ‘go out’ or ‘go off’ and educate yourself. Nobody has said that. However they do it, whenever they do it. If they’ve done so naturally and consistently throughout their lives, then that’s great. This has been explained to you, quite comprehensively, more than once. You’re refusing to take it in, for reasons clear only to you.

You're free to be done. Nobody is asking you to keep coming back.

In the same way that many of us may not have experienced the loss of parent. We don’t need to educate ourselves on that or experience it, to have an understanding of the emotions and feelings that would create for someone going through it.

Nevertheless parents of a child who has lost a parent might want to do a little research on how that impacts a child and the best way to support them. Like a parent of a disabled child might do some learning around that, or the parent of an adopted child is expected to do courses on issues that child might encounter before adopting.

I mean most parents go to antenatal classes at least so the concept of a parent having to learn something about parenting is hardly a new thing

OP, this has been a helpful thread. Thanks for starting it.

I do my best to get things right for my DC but I'm always aware that me being both white and separated from their father for many years doesn't always put them in an advantageous position when it comes to seeking advice etc. I have found it interesting to hear the different perspectives raised.

The white parent of a mixed child should be aware of issues surrounding race specifically because like it or not they are actually in the most advantageous position to advocate for their child if and when racism rears its ugly head. I'd go so far as to say they're in a better position to advocate than the Black parent of a mixed race child.

In some cases but not all cases.

I do think that theres knowing about something and then theres experiencing it. Before I had my DS I knew that racial microagressions were a thing, but they'd never happened to me. But if I'd never even heard the term, I'd have learnt what they were soon enough after having him. Now I get are you his mother? When out and about alone with my child, not in a group of women. And sometimes visible shock when I say yes, even though this is the 21st century and mixed race is the fastest growing ethnicity in the UK. Theres also a lot of wheres his father from, which gets right up my nose. Nobody would ask this if my kid was white, even though his father could easily be Russian, American or European and theres been black people in the UK since the Roman times. As it is, his dad isnt British and we met when we were both working abroad, but these are strangers asking and for all they know his dad could've been from Hull. Not to mention people complimenting him on his lovely light skin using those words (he would be equally gorgeous if he was as dark as his dad aaa).

Sorry, that was a ramble. But I wonder if PPs meant their mothers learnt from lived experience? As there wasn't the same access to information in previous generations.