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.

Is anything happening about your child being bullied? Because he is, isn't he?

@EmmaMaria like I said, if it does happen it’s rare but I’ve heard this more from white children or children of mixed heritage commenting on colour associating darker/brown skin as something bad. My reasoning comes from
my experiences both professionally and personally.

@Sleepingsa , I’m not talking about outright racism which is unacceptable, but these comments from young children noticing difference in colour and seeing it as something bad
and “othering” it. Up until recently, this is always excused and trivialised or thrown back by white people and sometimes as you can see from this thread people of colour too. So the responsibility goes to the victim. “Get over it”. This is the culture that continues into adulthood and adult spaces.

However @EmmaMaria I completely agree with you about how we approach and move forward as a species. We all need to do better for sure.

I don’t think you should be ashamed of a 7 year old making silly and hurtful comments; he is still very young. You have addressed the problem with him. We can try and do the best we can in raising our children but they will still get things wrong, especially as they are growing and learning, exploring and pushing boundaries. I think it is unfair of the other parents in the Whatsapp group to make this such a big deal, especially if they haven’t discussed with you first. If they’d spoken to you about it and you said you didn’t care or wouldn’t be handling it then fair enough, but that’s not the case

The comments on some of the WhatsApp is crazy.

Parents in response saying "disgusting behaviour" and they hope the school "comes down hard on him".

They are talking about a 7 year old child is what I can't get my head around. One with special needs, at that.

Also, it hasn't had a chance to be addressed, as I did not know and the school also got back to me today and told me they were unaware.

Not RTFT. Did your son actually make the comment? If it's his word against hers you should have his back.

It may be rare in a country where poc are in a minority but travel to countries where white skin is unusual and trust me, every child will comment. Or touch your hair, or skin, or cry.

Noticing difference is a human constant. It's the framework of racism that makes even innocent or well-meaning comments (let alone mean ones) problematic.

OMG, you've just reminded me that I did the exact same thing when I was a toddler in the late 70s. My parents were mortified!

It certainly happens at secondary school. I was " ghost girl" "white Honky" and " not part of the sistahood"

He has said to me that he said it but didn't mean to upset her or be mean. He only told me this a few minutes ago.

Could another child have put him up to making this comment? It is not unknown for children to get another child with limited social awareness to do or say something unacceptable (without fully understanding what they are doing. and perhaps thinking that they're supposed to do it). That way, the instigator achieves several goals: they hurt the victim; they get the direct perpetrator into trouble; and they often manage to escape blame or consequences themselves.

Those is so inappropriate that it was discussed in the whole group. When my girls have had issues with other children I have either spoken/messaged the teacher, or spoken with the parent of the child directly if I have a good relationship with them.

I escorted a school trip to a zoo. We'd just passed the orang outans. When a little boy four or five said urgently Miss there's one following us. It was a beautiful black woman with henna dyed hair wearing a sarong. What do you say besides no that's a beautiful lady.

I never told, he never got into trouble

Absolutely agree with this comment.

@QueenBlasia I have worked extensively in the UK and around the world, and have friends drawn from many ethnic groups - and sorry but I hear it a lot. Generally when people are hurriedly backtracking a sentence (which just makes it more obvious) because they just remembered that I understand what they said! Language in common use by adults is picked up by children.

Just one (or two) example: https://www.asianimage.co.uk/news/16312160.still-okay-use-word-gora/

Just for clarity, now DS has calmed down, he has told me he said "why is your skin brown?", not that he wasn't playing with her because of it. Which is entirely different and could have been turned into an education piece, had the teachers been notified.

My toddler son had white skin, huge blue eyes and white hair. We went to a market on the quayside overseas. The stallholders made a huge fuss of him. He was touched for good luck, given treats. It was a surrealistic experience.

Oh get a grip. She’s literally said it’s really awful. How is she being ignorant by saying saying something racist is bad and she’s making him apologise?

I had this when my son was in mainstream in primary he’s now a teenager. We also had a few incidents (luckily nothing that could be took to be racist) which just didn’t seem to add up. Ds isn’t the most articulate and at thst age some of the other kids are, and not what to say/not to say and when. So if something happened and you asked ds a direct question “did you do/say this?” He’d say yes and it was very difficult to question him on an incident he’d just shut down. A couple of times over the next few days the full story would then come out which would put a completely different spin on things. Obviously op son needs to be taught thst he can’t say this but if I was op I’d speak to school and get full story as maybe there’s more to it

Oh ffs he’s 7! Of course this needs to be taken seriously and be taught that this is wrong but kids of this age are just as likely to say I don’t want to play with you because you have curly hair/I don’t like your coat/etc etc. unfortunately he chose skin colour which has all sorts of conatations. He needs gently educable why this isn’t appropriate and an apology to the little girl in question and making sure the little girl is ok and supported.

Good god! The school absolutely needs to step in. This is ridiculous drama.

And I would say that even if your DS was not SEN. Children do not behave like adults. They must be taught, not pilloried.

I can see you are ashamed and disappointed but I'd be very wary of centring yourself and your son as the victims as this situation progresses.

Your son- for whatever reason- hurled racist abuse at another child which is awful. He may well have done it impulsively or had a good reason to want to hurt her, but it's unacceptable.

The Mum shared a traumatic incident with her friends on a WhatsApp group. No-one should be pressured into not speaking out about racism when it happens.

I would forget being "livid" that this has been shared, offer a full and frank apology to the Mum and do what you can to get to the bottom of why your son said it and make sure he understands why it's not OK. It will blow over soon enough and you can all move on.

Discussing it in a direct 1 to 1 chat with a close friend to get some support is very different to broadcasting it on a class whatts app group. And it sounds like they were making negative comments 'the autistic boy' relating to his disability.

So we have a 7 year old ND boy making a comment related to a protected characteristic, and a large group of adults making comments related to a protected characteristic. Neither is right, but the 2nd group is definitely worse, a load of grown adults targeting a child with a disability, knowing that the actions they are (rightly) unhappy with are likely linked to his disability. This does not make it ok, but we as adults have the experience and knowledge of how to do better, much more than a 7 year old.

I’m brown. I remember racist comments from 40 years ago, like other brown posters on here.

I also have a non NT (white) mother, possibly autistic but undiagnosed, who has and had no empathy and no understanding of how her words could hurt people. Indeed often defending what she said as “being the truth” or intended to help the person, for instance telling people they were fat.

What next? A small girls feelings no sense of self have been hurt. No one when I was little ever rallied around me, when I was little, against the racists. Not even 15 years ago as an adult. So it’s good the girl is being listened to and finding strong support. I’m glad society is changing.

But equally, I feel the girls supporters (who include the OP!) are mostly going about their support in very much the wrong way. After all this is a child who is autistic. Aged 7 he likely doesn’t even know what he is saying, though I suspect the WhatsApp parents assume he got these ideas from his family. where else would he got the idea that her skin colour makes the girl different or wrong? As an autistic child, he probably feels different and wrong quite a lot of the time.

A few things, which may be repeats of what others have said.

Are the WhatsApp parents aware the OPs son is autistic? Can the OP make it very clear that she will now work with her son to ensure this never ever happen again? Ie make it clear that these ideas were NOT coming from his family (which I’d otherwise assume). I’d find it comforting, if I were the girls parents, to hear a “so sorry“ message from the op, and to hear what was going to be put in place to teach the little boy that what he said is not on.

I think it's just a major misunderstanding on kids and how my DS expresses himself. He shouldn't be asking these questions and I have had a conversation with him about it, different races etc.

He tans quite easily as he's half Brazilian and he despises his skin colour changing (which I think ties into his autism) and he will say, "I hate my brown skin!" And we have been working with him for a while to try and explain and tell him it's ok if his skin changes in the sun etc.

I think he's asked this girl why is her skin brown, then said something like "I don't like brown skin" but he means on himself - if that makes sense? And it's been taken personally.

Obviously the issue of skin colour shouldn't even be coming up, but he's at that curious age also. We had a good chat and I showed him some educational videos etc and he says he understands now and he will apologise to the girl at school for upsetting her. He's also promised to not bring it up again.

He’s not racist. Appalled at the bullying nature of the WA group. OP, my ASD DC are now adults and I have been through this. Unfortunately people prefer to judge before they are willing to understand the the social implications of autism. My eldest in particular would blurt out inappropriate comments but it was always as a reaction to extreme stress. Usually after he was bullied himself earlier in the day.
It will get better. 💙