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.

The OP states in an update that her child has been a victim of racism himself, and that the comment about not liking brown skin had been said to him by bullies. Echolalia can be a symptom of ASD

Echolalia is a huge symptom of his. He repeats questions at least 3 times, repeats words etc. If he hears something new he finds interesting, that's his new word or phrase. He's been like this from he was a toddler (and it does my head in too, but it's just him!)

I couldn't quite follow all of your post, but I'm not sure this was meant for me?

Disabled isn’t a dirty word. Autism by definition is a life long disability. You’re being extremely ableist by making out that disabled is such a bad word

What an unpleasant and peculiar comment to make. That it literally the headteacher's job and highly relevant. The headteacher rarely teachers.

Also, having read your other comments, it's clear that you just want to label the OP as a racist (and anyone who defends her with the same brush) for your own personal motives. You seem to enjoy the division here and the feeling of power you get by being sanctimonious and obstruculous. How does that help cohesion? There are many shades of grey in life, not everything is black or white and it is quite lazy to pursue that route and shout someone down without adding anything meaningful to the discussion.

Sorry, the quote didn't attach. I was referring to the unpleasant one where Socrates (I think) said that she hoped the headteacher wasn't in school tomorrow.

Update

Teacher has sent me a lengthy message back to say she was aware of an incident at school where DS had commented on a child's skin colour, but this was not malicious and deal that with straight away with DS apologising for this and that the children seemed fine.

Teacher says she believes stories have been miscommunicated with children at home and has told me not to worry as it will be addressed with the children's parents involved.

They are also sending out communications about acceptable chat in WhatsApp over any bullying allegations and talk of individual pupils

They're facilitating a meeting with me tomorrow with the teachers involved so they can explain everything fully to me

Whew!

This sounds an appropriate sensible reply. The gossipy parents who seem to be enjoying making a ridiculous drama about it on the group chat should hang their heads in shame.

It's put my mind at ease a bit - but also an important lesson not to take children's words as gospel! You can take them seriously and investigate further, but to then go to a group chat and broadcast to multiple others on an issue such as racism without having the facts is just frustrating.

Still, DS has been spoken to about not mentioning skin colour in conversations with his friends at school moving forward.

It's frustrating because without full facts, it's been assumed to a large number of parents in DSs class.

Also, imagine what other parents will be thinking about us as parents?! If I heard something like that, I know what I would be thinking...

Which none of our family are in the slightest.

I'm glad you got a constructive outcome from the school.

It's the headteachers actual job to sort issues like this with parents. And yes you bring it to the school like the other adult should have instead of gossiping on a WhatsApp group about it. Do you really think a headteacher shouldn't meet with parents to discuss incidents that happened in hand school?

Any sensible parent will surely know this isn’t the case. I hope somebody has the courage to challenge the other parents instead of jumping on the bandwagon.

From the replies I seen on the screenshot it seemed to be the opposite - calling out the child as disgusting and calling for the school to react as harshly as possible

Yet how can they react when the school weren't even notified by the parent and it's been put straight onto a WhatsApp group instead?

If it was addressed with the teacher, it would have been cleared up there and then and no need for all the drama.

Glad I stay out of these types of groups and cliques as my hair would be pulled out.

I bet the TA has reported the group to the class teacher. Adults are worse than children when it comes to bullying.

No - I reported it, she was shocked to have even heard about it

That being said, she likely would have brought it up tomorrow

The TA is also a good friend of my DSs dad

I know of an almost identical scenario involving a sen child and I'm glad to say it occurred without any of the parental drama you have unfortunately experienced in real life and partly on this thread for that matter. Kids say stuff. It happens! 7 year old ffs.

Maybe your son said a offhand remark that's been twisted as 7 year olds aren't exactly reliable for remembering exactly what was said and stuff ends up abit like Chinese whispers.

The parent of the kid involved is a absolute arsehole for posting that in a WhatsApp group ostracising your son and yourself by association.

The parent should have spoken with the school and yourself and started spreading a damaging rumour that might not even be truthful.

This OP.
The victim of the racist remark is the victim, not you.

I'd write a formal complaint and email to the school FOA Head teacher and the school governors.

I'd say that an rumour being shared via a social media app from one parent to multiple others has put your very vulnerable child in danger (which it has potentially especially if these parents decide to form a playground mob to confront you when your son is present) and that this has breached safeguarding policies.

Say that you are concerned that the parents involved may incite their children to isolate your son and potentially lead to long term bullying.

Say that this other parent's actions have lead to a hostile environment for yourself and your son.

My daughter, a black girl, was harassed by a boy with SEN at school, they were 9 years of age at the time. He would pull her hair and rip her jumper off her and get right in her face and make kissy noises.

His mum told me that he is obsessed with her dark skin. I did not tell my daughter this. I didn’t want her to think that her skin meant that she should take on abuse. For months, we all made excuses for the boys SEN, and that it wasn’t that bad until I saw the behaviour myself and my daughter started HATING school.

I dealt with this by speaking with the school - but I was aware of how sensitive this topic was and I didn’t want to get it wrong so I did end up speaking to a bunch of friends I trusted beforehand so that I could tackle this correctly and sensitively but whilst also making sure that the school could protect my daughter. - this may be what the other parent is doing, but it seems her friends have a WA group? At the same time, the boys mum that had SEN was also battling with the school to ensure that her son was getting the care he needed as he was also being bullied by another group.

Im sharing to say that it is very complex. At this young age it’s more of an insensitive comment and I would do everything in my power to get that thinking out - because it is mean - and as we can see from this post - regardless of your skin colour, comments on skin and personal appearances can last a lifetime.

In my case, my friends didn’t share on a WhatsApp group. That mum is probably venting and maybe she doesn’t have the tools to deal with this via the school (I was part of the PTA and so many parents didn’t know how to make their complaints heard by the school effectively). Maybe she does and I’m sure she will approach the school too.

Yes speak to the school. If you can, speak to the girls mum to clear anything there if it’s safe. Speak to your son. If he has a support worker at school, get them involved.

I would be asking the school to do more work on inclusion.

School governors do not get involved in school complaints until they have been through the complaints process. You can cc or FOA governors all you like, but they won’t see it due to the way complaints policies are set up.

Glad being sorted out sensibly by the school and that the vigilante WhatsApp group being spoken to.
Working at a school myself, weekend or not, I would have contacted teacher/SLT by email copying all in to make sure picked up. Hopefully, the TA did otherwise she is part of it.
By the sounds of the WhatsApp group she is very unwise to be part of it at all.

This comment demonstrates exactly the point I made earlier about how racism is perpetuated in society. OP has clearly stated that the parent of the other child is not involved in the witch hunt and not on the WhatsApp group of gossips, yet here you are quick to lay the blame at her door. I wonder why that is? Many people on this thread have been quick to attack the parent of the little girl who OP has been clear has nothing to do with the WhatsApp group. The rumour could have been started by anybody.

It’s almost like people recognise how harmful racism is so they do not want to be associated it, but would rather focus on creating a label and rejecting it, even going as far as attacking victims, anything to keep themselves away from the label, without thinking of how other people have been hurt. This is not helpful. Even OP herself has admitted jumping to conclusions when she saw the screenshots and that she herself would have been judgemental of parents she deemed as racist if it hadn’t been her parenting and her son that were the subject of discussion. But such attitudes are unhelpful.

If, as some other posters have pointed out, the focus was first and foremost on supporting the child who had to experience racist comments, the outcome would have been more constructive. The reason comments about skin colour hurt more than other playground teasing (such as wearing glasses) is because of the whole structure of prejudice and discrimination built around skin colour and the way such playground incidents feed into them. We can all help to dismantle this system by recognising and treating each other as human, healing hurt first before jumping into defensive or even attacking mode which builds and deepens resentments.