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.

Mum of a brown skinned autistic boy here. He has been called dirty/dark in the past. It has stuck with him to the point that he now ridicules friends that are darker than he is (to me at home)Of course I have explained this is not correct, I have explained in multiple different ways and multiple times. It does not sink in. I hope he doesn’t say it to his classmates but if he does, then really what the fuck can I do about it?

My daughter referred to 'the brown lady' at Kindergarten but apparently this was because she wore a brown overall.

I would much rather say coloured than black, personally I find that offensive, but that’s not really the point of what I’ve said, you’ve chosen 1 word and focused on it. I work with and have family of colour and it makes no difference to me what colour someone’s skin is, I don’t even notice, but what I do notice if is someone is a dick.

It's a luxury not to notice the colour of other people's skin. Or your own.

On medical forms it asks what is your ethnicity black British or white British not coloured. You wouldn't call a white person coloured would you.

@ellie09 I feel for you and especially your poor DS.

What strikes me is you've mentioned he has been bullied into meltdown previously by some of the children whose parents are now being vile and instigating trial by WhatsApp on your 7 year old

May I ask what action, if any, school have taken and if it has been satisfactory and ended the bullying? As if it hasn't this sounds like a continuation of it, heavily supported by chavvy mums in a group.

I personally hate these WhatsApp groups which exclude certain parents, I had the same with my DS and was told a group of mums on there were being vile about him because the teachers had praised him for hard work. One of them actually said he only got praised cos he is SEN and they have to box tick. I wanted to punch her but instead I reported to school.

I would demand school takes action on this situation with those parents. If there is any chance of disabilist language I would report to the police under the malicious communications act and demand they're dealt with.

School also needs to release a school wide statement that incidents should be reported to school, not on WhatsApp between parents.

👏👏👏

These parents are also discussing the child’s autism on SM. They need to look to themselves. That is much worse than what the 7 year old has done, because they are so-called adults.

I think that the thought process for a lot of us (myself included) is "I am not a racist" therefore "nothing I do is racist". This is obviously the wrong way round. Nobody is essentially racist, people just say or do racist things sometimes. In our culture, racism is so morally loaded that people immediately jerk to the "how DARE you call me racist!" response rather than introspecting. You don't have to have hate in your heart to occasionally do racist things.
I do think that publicly name-and-shaming on whatsapp doesn't help things.

It is irrelevant because racism is not an autistic trait. There are millions of autistic people who have never said a racist comment in their lives. As a non-Caucasian mum of two autistic children, it really gets my back up when people conflate autism with racial comments.

You keep doing what you are doing until it does sink in. He's clearly internalised the racist comments which have been said to him which is sad, but it does happen sometimes. Don't just teach him about his skin colour though. Teach him about his heritage and cultural background where his brown skin comes from, and why he should be proud of that. Its not just about skin colour, there is so much more to it. It may not sink in immediately, but it will over time.

Thank you for this. My DD was told she was "the colour of poo" (she's biracial) and it's stayed with her, years later.

I don't agree with naming and shaming kids on WhatsApp - if nothing else, how is the parent supposed to address it if they don't know about it? - but I do think parents of the victim should be free to vent about the issue.

DS’ private school will expell children whose parents use WhatsApp / social in this way as it is classified as online bullying per their policy. I know many state schools would also take a dim view of this. Write to the head, include the screenshots, and demand to understand why parents could post your child’s details in a whatsapp group you have no access to when before the school hasn’t contacted you. Demand sight of their online bullying policy too.

"it makes no difference to me what colour someone’s skin is, I don’t even notice."

Please stop with this absolute nonsense.

This is the issue - it's considered offensive these days (and let's not get into a huge tangent about difficult it is to know what's offensive these days and how you can't even say "gay" anymore). To give an obvious example, I might personally think that "chinaman" is better term than say asian but I live in a culture that regards the former as offensive so I don't go around saying it or posting it on public forums because I'm not an edgy teen.
Now, if I did say "chinaman", should I be crucified in the public square? Of course not, but I wouldn't expect it to pass without comment.
Also, I'm white and I'm assuming that you are too - maybe you aren't. I guess that's a bit racist of me.

I don't agree that social media is the right platform for these discussions. The parent should have approached the school or you directly (if they know you well enough)

St aged 7, kids don't always know what they saying or why

@GeriMumma41 you need to start your own thread.

I don’t particularly like saying any of the terms as people are people to me. People can describe others or themselves whichever way they choose. Where I work, there are a lot of people who think it’s ok to refer to people from Pakistan using the shortened version of that word because their families are from India, although there were born in the UK but I would never use that word, I don’t think it’s ok.

I just don’t like to refer to people as black, I don’t like to refer to anyone’s skin colour as I just don’t see it necessary although I don’t pull other people up for using whatever word they feel to describe someone as I would probably spend most of my days in arguments.

Start a new thread you can do it under chat or aibu to get the traffic you want so your question is answered.

As a brown skinned person, this makes me sad. People are so scared of what they're saying being misconstrued that no one can talk about race any more.

So @ThatRareUmberJoker has pointed out why some might find the term offensive and you’ve essentially called them a dick?

I might be asking OP what the atmosphere and ethos of the school is if your DS had heard that type of statement beforehand or the atmosphere is such that it would be unacceptable?

I had the same thing. My child was 5 years old. He came home and said the teacher told them in the past black people weren't allowed to sit next to white people on the bus and had to give seats up for the white people. I thought why on earth would you teach such a thing to such young children. I'm sure they were trying to teach them that its wrong but I think its putting those ideas in their heads from such a young age. If such young children are being taught those things they will already start to look at skin colour and see each other differently imo.
They're too young to fully comprehend what is being said and if the idea is not put into their head then surely they won't judge each others skin colour negatively, maybe just a curiosity which can be discussed in a more positive way.
It maybe children are hearing stories like that and then repeating, so not necessarily coming from home.

Why are you "so sure" this girl has done things her mother wishes she had not. Assumptions about people you have no relationship with are ridiculous

As it turns out from the updates, the girl was not involved at all. The OP's ds made the comment to his friend, a boy. The Whatsapp parents got the story very garbled.