DS made racist comment at school

[ellie09]

I have a DS age 7 who has ASD and he struggles quite a bit socially.

I am utterly appalled and ashamed by what I have heard this morning. This wasn't any thing directly to me or by the teacher.

DS apparently made a comment to a girl in his class saying he "didn't want to play with her as she has brown skin". This apparently blown up in a private group chat on WhatsApp that I was not aware of. I hadn't had any communications from teachers or other parents, so I was confused.

His best friend at school is a Muslim boy and his granny is Brazilian. He has grown up around different skin colours from a baby. We have had a serious conversation today in which I have told him he must apologise to this girl tomorrow.

However, I am also angry that this has been put on a WhatsApp group before anybody has even spoken to me, I assume the teachers aren't even aware. Of course, this has caused outrage in the group chat (and rightly so!) but I can't help but feel this was wrongly handled by the other parent as this is a group of 7 year old children and issues like this can escalate very quickly.

How do I handle this moving forward? Do I request a meeting with the head teacher and make them aware of the incident etc?

I feel really sick at the thought of walking my child into school tomorrow, knowing that most will be judging based on what they have heard.

Btw, I'm not in the group chat - screenshots were sent to me by another parent.

Similar happened with my son in Y6. He was being bullied, which ended in a nasty physical incident. In an attempt to deflect from their little darlings' appalling behaviour (including videoing the incident), a group of other parents tried to turn it all back on my son and I discovered this was being discussed on a WhatsApp ground.

I very much doubt any of the parents will approach you in person OP. These people are way more comfortable bitching about children behind a screen and whipping up their little group into a frenzy, but most likely none will have the balls to speak to you face to face.

Do speak to the school though.

What absolute rubbish. You do realise that saying children ‘of colour’ don’t make racist comments, only white children do, is in itself racist? That sort of comment is very telling 👍

We had a similar issue with DS when he was around the same age. He’d had a row with his friend , at some point in the argument he’d said her skin was like poo, she’d said his skin was like a pig. We never got to the bottom of who said it first, the school took it quite seriously I know it went on the racism report that goes to the council.
The issue was that my son got told off and the girl didn’t, he just could not understand how the two comments weren’t equally as bad. I tried to explain how when there are less people like you, you already feel different and the world doesn’t seem as safe.

We also had another incident with the same girl where she had said that she liked a boy and DS asked if she was back. She’d said that what he said was racist and he couldn’t understand it. I asked him if he would have asked the same question to a white girl and he said no and then he understood. It then came out that he didn’t think that white people could get with black people.

But here’s the kicker we are a mixed family. My FIL is Indian and my husband is half Indian - he was racially abused at school called the P word etc. People always say that kids don’t see colour and they learn this kind of thing at home so people automatically assume it’s the parents views.

I think sometimes we need to stand down a bit from things like this and not view the thing through an adults lens. Racism is extremely complicated, it’s taken us years to come to the point we are at as a society so we need to give children a chance to learn from these incidents in an appropriate way

Lots of things you've supposed the poster has said aren't true

The girl didn't lie. He told his mum that he said to her he doesn't like brown skin
His mum says he has said similar about himself before, so believes he would say he doesn't like brown skin (because he doesnt). There's zero suggestion it's false, someone told him to say it, hes been manipulated. I'm not sure why having a motive of trying to hurt her would be an excuse anyway. Assuming she's a vindictive liar shows a worrying disbelief that these things happen

That's weird sorts of excuses for disbelieving something even His own mum said happened

It's crazy to me that people would do this level of mental backflips to find a get out clause

I would try to speak to someone at school asap as it’s complex. You have the issue of what was said, the WhatsApp mob and your son’s ASD. I hope school handle this sensibly.

People who wont use this as a learning opportunity put a target on themselves. Empathy for the real victim in this is not superiority.

Apologies if she has confirmed it is true - I missed that.

@Penaltychance I'm not looking for a get out clause, I just didn't think the OP (or us) had heard his side of things, and I felt the attacks on her parenting were very strong and unkind considering this.

It's standard in schools to listen to both sides before restorative conversations are held.

Kids can say wrong things &
And kids can recover …. I’ve seen kids have done much worse get back on track.

IMO - ask school for support in next steps. Which is probably a private school-supported apology (if he actually said it). Dont jump to conclusions about what happened.

Try not to blame on ASD.

Be so glad that he is young, only yr 7. Kids mess up, it happens. He can correct self, and move forward being positive.

Some other thing will happen soon enough to distract everyone.

How to you handle parents? Just say, school is supporting us with this. Expecting help and support with moving forward.

You don’t owe explanations or excuses to anyone.

Try not to blame ASD, but rather talk to him about behavior instead like “impulse control” and maybe try out roll play where he must not say immediate thought. But think of another word. I worked with a young man w impulse issue … used to say c-word at young age, which was awful. We practiced saying “clown” instead. Or “killer clown” if he was particularly angry. His brain used to really like to say the forbidden words …

This is what my mom did when I was in primary school. When I was in reception another kid called me the N word. So, the head teacher called her parents in.

You can't get into the intersectionality of this incident when the OP motivations are questionable. @Scattery

The awful comments about a disabled child are disgusting to read.

I am sorry the little girl was upset by the comments and your son shouldn’t have said it. However, he is unlikely to have known he shouldn’t have said it. We can’t prep our kids on absolutely everything they can and cannot or should not say. ASD is a social disability and often comes with learning difficulties and usually difficulties processing and understanding. I would be upset that my son had said it, but I would not be angry or punish him for something he likely didn’t thoroughly understand due to his disability. I would explain in ways he could process and use it as a lesson for future. It really doesn’t mean he’s an awful racist.

You sound very sensible indeed and handled it correctly.

Kids say all sorts of things about each other, Whatsapp is surely not designed for that. I'm glad there was no such thing when mine was at school.

What a ridiculous fuss over nothing. My kids have brown skin, btw.

This thread is really illuminating as to how the problem of racism gets perpetuated in society. I am looking at it from different perspectives:

1. The perspective of a 7 year old girl who is asked why her skin is the colour it is and told that her friend doesn’t like the colour of her skin. This will doubtless be one of many messages she will get, both personally and from the wider society (mass media) that there is something wrong with her skin colour, which is something she was born with and cannot change. Just one cog in the machine that chips away at her self worth.
2. The perspective of the parents of the 7 year old girl who are likely to have had a lifetime of these experiences and feel hurt, angry and perhaps powerless.
3. The perspective of the 7 year old boy who is curious about the differences in skin colour and starting to notice the different values ascribed to different colours by society at large, and perhaps may be struggling with feelings of inferiority himself, going from OP’s comments about his distaste for his own skin colour when it tans to a darker shade of brown, and his curiosity about members of his family.
4. The perspective of the parent of the 7 year old boy who feels shame and disappointment at the fact that her son might be perceived to be a racist, to compound the bullying he has been experiencing for his disability.
5. The perspective of the other parents who discussed the incident on the group chat to the exclusion of the parents of both children involved in the incident.
6. The perspective of the commenters on this mumsnet thread, the majority of whom see racism as a label to be avoided and rejected rather than a set of behaviours that victimise people within groups deemed to be inferior.

If we are serious about rooting out racism in society, then we need to acknowledge and apologise for harmful behaviours rather than minimising or trying to rationalise them as many on this thread have done. Children see what is happening in the world around them
and 7 year olds are naturally curious. It shouldn’t be a taboo to talk about why skin comes in different colours, it could even be a fun science education - it is when we start ascribing different values to the different colours that the issue starts and evidently the children in this school have started to experience this. OP states that the school is multicultural but I wonder if they have a problem with racism, given they have a problem with bullying generally?

His asd and learning disability is extremely relevant.

Its also why people don't always immediately go to schools, or other parties parents to sort it out.

There's all sort of weird excuses on this thread. Lots of people saying it must have been misunderstood, he wouldn't have said it like that and outright accusing the girl of lying and that shes probably bullying him to deserve it. The mum has said that he has "friends of all ethnicities", pulled out a random relative, said they used to be friends.
When her own child has clearly said that he said to a girl with brown skin, that he didn't like brown skin, his mum still thinks it's all a big misunderstanding

As someone that's tried to raise clear racist incidents before, the pattern of "you must have got it wrong, that never happened at all and if theres proof then it must be out of context he's a good person, his mums best friend is black, you must have done something first" is absolutely a recognisable pattern

I can't say if something happened like this to my kid (Especially on a friday) that I wouldn't first speak to other mum friends. It wasn't the class what's app it was a "clique" which might be a group of mum friends

Is the WhatsApp group parents? I had a situation where my DS repeated a racist joke he’d heard from another friend, the school rang me and I contacted the other parent directly to apologise and assure her it wouldn’t happen again.

Exactly this. I'm so glad someone is thinking of this. So many posters don't seem to feel it's relevant at all.

The situation became intersectional as soon as parents took it to Whatsapp and changed the power dynamic in the situation.

Sounds like he was just using that as an excuse not to play with her, without thinking how it sounds.

It's not necessarily for me that it's not relevant
But that the response shouldn't be a laundry list of all the reasons why the girl has got it wrong

It needs an apology not a massive list of excuses however valid or not valid they are

The little girls experience is someone she considered a friend, asked her about her skin and then said they don't like brown skin and didn't play with her.

My autistic son at school touched a girl inappropriately at primary. He didn't understand why, but he still did it. The girls experience was still the same though.

We apologised, worked on it at home but didn't give the level of excuses that are happening on this thread

The main victim here is the child of colour who was humiliated by a racist comment, not OP's son, and yet so many mumsnetters are absolutely desperate to minimise her experience and claim that "all children do it" (no they don't) so as to refocus on making him the victim.

It's ridiculous. A racist incident occcured in school and while the perpetrator was very young and does have additional needs, trying to claim that no one has the right to discuss that and that it's tantamount to a lynching (um... what) is just a naked attempt to suppress people's natural anger and distress about racism. This is literally why MN has a reputation for being racist. The family affected has every right to be very angry and to discuss it with whom they choose.

@DiddyRa This isn't about disability primarily, it's about race. And I say that as someone with severe disabilities and autism. Disability is not something to be used to distract from racism. Doing that is insulting to disabled people!

As opposed toe the power dynamic between presumably (based on OP description of said child's skin going brown in the sun) a white presenting boy and a brown girl. Yes, lets talk about intersectionality and power. The OP is feeling" really sick at the thought of walking my child into school tomorrow, knowing that most will be judging based on what they have heard". Lets ignore a 7 year old girl who might be feeling sick about going to school, the shops, the park, social media etc because she might be judged based on her skin colour. @Scattery

A lot of us brown Mners are calling for restraint. Its not minimising. I just dont believe in shaming children, SEN or no.
Adults perhaps.