Black character for World Book Day?

[WorldBookDayChoice]

My almost four year old is white with wavy/curly hair. She has a story book whose main character is black with curly hair, and DD has always said this character looks like her. She now wants to dress as this girl for WBD. In practice this will just mean wearing specific coloured clothes and holding the book up, but she's also mentioned making her hair even curlier to match the character's hair.

Basically is this okay? Or disrespectful?

YANBU it's okay
YABU it's not okay

Okay, I’ll give it a go. I’m mixed. I wouldn’t be “offended” by OP’s DD, and it’s clear no offence is intended, but I would find it somewhat uncomfortable that a parent might not have thought about what curling her DD’s hair to make her look more like a black character represents. It’s taking a physical feature which carries a lot of weight and contention in all kinds of ways both historically and currently for black people, and trivialising it for dress up. It doesn’t mean that the OP or her DD are racist, but what is racist is telling black and mixed people they shouldn’t have the feelings they do and those feelings are stupid.

And here’s the thing - black people aren’t a hive mind. I’m uneasy with it; another mixed poster on this thread says they wouldn’t care; there will be other mixed and black people who share both or neither of these opinions. All of those opinions are valid. So when people start confidently saying “there’s nothing wrong with it” and using words like unhinged and stupid towards those who don’t agree with them, as if theirs is the only opinion that matters, that’s where the contention begins.

Thank you, I appreciate this

I was basing that on this thread, the responses (not the bonkers ones, but the reasonable ones as above) and the potential for it to seem off, because of the historic attitude towards characteristics associated with being black. It isn’t - to me - a stance worth arguing, if there’s the chance than even a minority of people of colour would find it unsettling.

Understood, thank you

I'm mixed heritage but look white and I personally don't see it as any different to wearing a white plait for Elsa or plaits/messy hair for Hermione but its a tricky one because we are not a hive mind.

I also don't think a 3 year old can be racist.

Just out of interest, whats the book? X

I find it confusing as well. Especially the hair thing. If someone is dressing up as a specific character no matter what the colour of their skin, then I would assume they want to look as similar as they can to that character within their means (obviously no black face).

Are we saying now that if a black child wanted to go as Dorothy from the wizard of Oz they wouldn't be allowed to put their hair in two plates? But wearing the dress would be fine? Or if they wanted to dress as Cinderella, and has natural curly hair - is it not acceptable to comb it back wear it in a bun because it's considered too white?

Or a white blonde child that loved the story of Pocahontas wasn't allowed to wear a brown wig as part of the costume?

Theres so many blurred lines of what's acceptable and what's not. Everyone is offended by something these days

I think it’s lovely your child has embraced a character who happens to be black. It’s hair- my children are mixed raced, if they want to stick a blonde plait in their hair to be Elsa why not?! It’s not corn rowing or dreadlocks!

Thank You for the Little Things by Caryl Hart

My daughter went as Tiana from Princess in the Frog for a party because she is her favourite Disney princess. We didn't do anything with skin or hair, just the same dress and focused on the attributes of the character such as great cook, kind, hard working.

And a toy frog? 😁 We had problems with Room on the Broom because she wanted to take the cat with her. She has a stuffed one but she wanted to take the real one 🤣 Anyway sorry I digress

This has got to be a joke 😂

But that's like saying 'a black person is nothing more than the colour of their skin'. The book character won't be in the book just going around 'being black'; she will be a dancer, an astronaut, a whatever, who happens to be black.

Saying a child can only admire characters that have the same colour skin as themselves is ridiculous.

Would anyone tell a black child that they can only dress up as a black character and that they shouldn’t straighten their hair ? Hairstyles do not “belong” to any race or culture .

Teaching white children that black people are different and it is not ok to what to dress like them. Seems like a step backwards to me!

Surely we should be teaching kids not to see colour

I have to assume this is an attempt at a joke.

My daughters have dressed up for their birthdays as Cinderella and Anna it would be like telling a white child they can’t dress as Tiana because she’s black, that sounds more racist to me. My son was also Harry Potter for world book day as was another child in his class who is black never occurred to us he couldn’t dress as him because he isn't white.

(Though I personally don’t allow my children to straighten their hair)

How is dressing as her favourite character racist?

You know when you read articles about randomly find things that "they" are calling to ban, and you wonder "who on earth would want to ban people wearing blue t-shirts?"

Do you also think black people should not wear western clothes? Making children see people of other colours as different is how racism begins

Good

Are you alright?

Anyways OP, it's a lovely idea and it's not racist at all. I wish we would see more of this actually...

My daughter went as Auoda from Around The World in 80 days once and until I read this thread it never occurred to me that people might have seen it as racist 😕
she just loved the character and her jewellery

This will be my last comment on this before I exit the thread, but just wanted to say that although I hold a different position to yours I feel this is an excellent post.

If more people could be more respectful regarding nuanced topics like this it would be great.

Of course some people will find certain things offensive that others - even the majority - don’t. However, that’s always been the case.

We are all different and just like people have different views on what they view as acceptable or proper in regards to what politicians or newspapers say , climate change solutions, what children should be learning at school/home, what issues should be taboo in children’s media /literature or even what people say about the royal family and many many other things, there’s going to be differences of opinions within topics like this too.

You’ll get the people who can’t wait to say “people find everything offensive nowadays” or they are being too “woke” (hate the misuse of that word btw!) but they are normally people lacking in empathy.

There have and will always be people who hold different views based on upbringing, personality and background etc. It’s just nowadays, minority voices can’t be silenced as much.

I remember as a teen, a group of friends told a racist joke. I was disgusted and me and my (white) best friend challenged them. They kept arguing with us that we were being over sensitive. This was the 90s and they’d probably be embarrassed if I reminded them of it now.

My point being I can imagine, especially in the past, people have remained silent when they’ve found things offensive but nowadays feel more empowered to state their position as you have here @ComtesseDeSpair .

So kudos to you 👏🏾👏🏾

I am black. This is not offensive, in fact I’m almost offended by the suggestion that a black character is only for black kids! I hope your DD enjoys dressing up as her favourite character.

I can't see it's any different to a black child dressing as Harry Potter tbh.

One of my (white - fair hair, blue eyes) GDs has a best friend who is black. GD describes her as her twin. She relates to her as a twin soul.

She and my GD have played dressing up in the girl's mother's African clothes and had a great time. There is no way it should be seen as racist.

If your DD identifies with the book character sufficiently to dress up as her on WBD, then she is clearly already looking beyond skin colour for her role models and looking at what that character represents that she admires.