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.

When? You have no idea how old I am.

I would really like more of the 40% who find ‘if you’re the white parent of a mixed race child in the U.K., you should educate yourself about race issues and racism’ to BU to explain why.

What assumptions?

I am the mother of mixed race children (I am Indian DH white). I do not agree that kids pick up mostly on the culture of their mum. We live in the UK and the culture here is very strong.

It has taken time for DH to pick up on some aspects of racism and the learning has only really evolved as the kids have got older. DH is quite anti-racist but only with experience does it become apparent. He struggled to believe until it happened that our kids would get followed around supermarkets- as teenagers they did and get asked for receipts when they were leaving supermarkets.

The judgements made at schools that our kids would be good at maths but not good at sports.

Also getting stopped by the Police for no particular reason infuriated DH. The bit he struggled to get his head round is that most of the time we choose not to complain- to do so would leave you repeatedly handling complaints.

In short if you do not experience it, you will not understand it fully. Once you do it is an eye opener.

They usually misunderstanding of what the OP is saying is as present as always on a thread about racism.

I completely agree, I'm a white mum of mixed race children, I started educating myself before I was pregnant and will continue to do so for the rest of my life.

It's harder than I ever imagined seeing racism through the eyes of my children, and that won't remotely compare to how it feels for them.

My sons are white/Indian. DS1 is 15 and his two closest friends are Black, he's far more likely to talk to them about racism than his white friends, despite them being friends for years.

DS2 is 12, he has 4 close friends, two Asian children, one Black one White.

We went to great lengths to ensure they were in a diverse school, and it's one of the best decisions we ever made.

It would be lovely to claim that there isn't racism in the uk, but that's not true, and I'll never turn a blind eye to something that could harm my sons. Education is the very least a white parent of mixed race children should do.

This is an issue I am very aware of and have spent time thinking about.

But what do you do if your spouse is the one who thinks skin colour is no big deal?

My husband is black. He's Kenyan. Moved to the UK in his 20s.

I have asked him about this more than once and he tells me it would be making an issue where there isn't one and we don't need to train our sons to see racism everywhere.

His words not mine.

Do I, as a white woman, have the right to correct my black husband on racism? To tell him how he sees things is wrong and he has to listen to me? Is that not problematic in itself? A white person telling a black person their lived experience is wrong?

We have two now adult sons. One considers himself mixed and the other considers himself black. I feel my role is to respect that, not to tell one of them he's wrong.

What do you do? I wish I knew.

What are your sons’ opinions on the topic?

Was this meant to be a response to someone/something someone said?

Yes, but you should also educate yourself on it full-stop regardless of your child's ethnicity

@Soontobe60 you must recognise how different that is? Firstly as a white woman I can educate my DC about racism from my point of view but not from the point of view of someone who’s experienced it. And my DC need to understand racism but as white kids they’ll never actually experience it.

They both have autism. My youngest very severely to the point he will never be able to live independently. He is the one who says he is mixed. He views it mathematically. Half and half.

My oldest doesn't care. He says he doesn't feel he's ever been discriminated against because of his skin colour and it's not something he ever thinks about.

We live in the whitest of white parts of the UK and my family make up about half the diversity in the village and if anyone gives a shit I've not heard of it.

Which sometimes I think is in itself an issue. My family is a novelty. I am aware of potential fetishisation also iyswim and that bothers me.

My mum ( white ) cut off my long hair when I ( mixed race ) was 7. I had a bob because she didn’t know to cope with my ‘crazy hair ‘.
after straightening my hair everyday for 16 years - I stopped a month ago . I feel so sad I was told I had unmanageable hair . I have beautiful curls ! That’s super random but I feel so sad looking back . I was so shamed of myself and my hair .

i grew up in a very white area . My brother and I were the black kids in the town . I hated my mum for years for taking us to this town. I have so many issues from being bullied .

@Pinkyyogapanties I’m so sorry.

@IncompleteSenten It sounds to me like you’re pretty on the ball with all of this, tbh. Even the manner in which you’re expressing your doubts indicates the amount of thought you’ve put into it. They’re lucky to have you.

Same here. I had to have my hair very short as a child because my mum refused to deal with it, and then when I grew it longer as a teenager she refused to take me to a hairdresser to get it trimmed and wouldn't let me buy appropriate products for it. She insisted I used the same products she used for her very fine blonde straight hair.

It took me years as an adult to give myself permission to go to an appropriate hairdresser, to buy the right products, to deal with my hair correctly. Even now if I wear it curly I get negative comments from my family about how it looks every single time.

Except that Power+ prejudice= racism is a new concept.
Both black and white people (and others) can be racist.

I’m not sure why you’ve had such dickish responses on here.

Some posters get instantly triggered when someone mentions race and they try and deny there’s any such thing as racism.

I would expect any parent, especially white patents, to understand racism and how it affects their child and how their child is going to be negatively affected.

This could be direct racism, or more systemic and deep rooted like with many employers, landlords, police etc are going to subconsciously treat you differently than a white person.

I would also expect 2 dads or a single parent dad to understand the difficulties that a female may face throughout her life too.

And although there will be people who deny the sexes are often treated differently (or that men have it more difficult than women), they are wrong because of deep rooted subconscious bias/stereotypes that people have.

My point was not that all people of colour are treated the same, or that there aren’t nuances which depend on ethnicity. Surely, if you are being treated as though you are mixed logically you are not being treated as though you are white? Or did you mean you feel there is a fluidity in the way that you are treated?

@Sugarsun this:

(or that men have it more difficult than women)

depends on the area in society you are talking about.

Thank you so much. That means a lot to me.

When I educate myself about something, go back to original sources, obtain contemporary data, consider the merits of both sides of an argument and talk about it with different people to get a wide range of view points. I often end up with a view diametrically opposed to the view held by the person who suggested I should "educate myself".

So if you have a view which you strongly hold, and think others should strongly hold it too, educate them. Put forward persuasive, compelling cases why your position is right. If you don't, if you leave it up to them, you could well end up with someone who makes the effort and finds out that it is unquestioningly you that is full of boloney.

As the white mum of a mixed race child, I'm frankly astonished and appalled that 40% of people think you're being unreasonable.

Surely this is just basic common sense that, as the parent of a child who may sadly experience racism, you should be equipped with a reasonable understanding of the issues so that you can support your child effectively and advocate for them appropriately?

Of course, there will be elements of your child's experience that you will never fully understand, and it's entirely possible that the child's other parent won't either. Being mixed has its own challenges as well as many positives. I have had to constantly educate myself as my dd has grown up and worked through her feelings about various aspects of her identity, and I have had to be really open to learning about her perspectives on race and ethnicity - even when they have been hard to hear! - rather than simply presuming that my own assumptions and perspectives are correct. I don't have her lived experience, but I can certainly try to understand it and to support her as well as I can. And I can also learn from others by reading more widely on the subject and listening to the experiences of people who know a lot more about this subject than I do.

I'm sorry if one or both of your parents disappointed you, OP. You deserved better.i don't doubt that I probably get things wrong myself sometimes, but I hope that dd will at least recognise that I have acknowledged the challenges and done my very best to educate myself about them in order to support her as well as I can.

@IncompleteSenten what you’ve said so so interesting. I’ve noticed anecdotally that some of us who have formative experience in black majority countries may underestimate the childhood experience of racism and its impacts. I think this is particularly noticeable in people who come from middle class l backgrounds because we know what black achievement looks like, we’ve already formed at least a partial positive black identity and the UK is a developed country, so the immediate assumption (especially in times gone by) is that no matter what it will be better here. Your husband might have a completely different view, but I imagine if it’s somewhat similar to this than knowing your child is also mixed race might make race seem like less of a problem.

It’s also very interesting that your elder son identifies as black and not mixed race but also has said he hasn’t experienced any racism. I would have doubts but that might be true. It might be that what you have done as parents is managed to instil a very positive view of his black Kenyan heritage which is just as important. (Caveat, I am not saying that people who identify as a mixed race do not have a positive sense of their black identity or that it’s in anyway bad to identify as mixed race).