Blatant racism from school - parent won’t do anything

[Wishthingswerenouting]

My niece who is mixed race is at a predominantly white school. She is 1 of 2 kids who aren’t white. Let’s call my niece Sarah. Let’s say the other kid is called Jenny.

there’s this one teacher who tried to give my niece detention for “wearing fake tan” told her her legs are orange and said that she’s breaching uniform policy. My niece explained that it’s just her skin tone and in the end managed to avoid the detention. She has also been a bit of an arse to my niece separate to this.

this same teacher calls my niece Jenny, and Jenny Sarah. They look absolutely nothing alike. Not even similar skin tone aside from anything else.

my sister says I’m being dramatic in saying that it’s outrageous and she should complain. My niece agrees with me but her mum won’t raise it. Aibu to think this is very blatant - at best ignorance - and should be logged?

The fake tan thing is awful but unfortunately it’s up to your sister or niece to put in a complaint but it’s great that your niece has such a caring aunt to turn to.

I do think the mixing up names, although frustrating, could be very difficult to prove as racism as I’m sure teachers must mix up names all the time.

Have you spoken to Sarah’s DF about this. Maybe it should be him speaking to school about this nasty treatment of your niece?

Your fury is understandable, but you would be massively overstepping acceptable boundaries if you interfered. You should neither complain to the school nor stir up a sense in your niece that her mother is failing her. Don’t bring it up again. If your niece brings it up with you independently then encourage her to raise her concern with a teacher she feels she can trust to listen to her and handle it properly. Tell her that there is no need to be worried because her other teachers will all want the best for her and this teacher needs to learn from these incidents. She won’t be privy to how it’s handled, but behind the scenes the teacher will undoubtedly be investigated, so she should see an end to these incidents.

Wishthingswerenouting
That teacher is a racist provocateur pure and simple they know what they're doing and enjoy doing it, and it's easier to do within a structure of being in the more powerful position with ignorant supposedly superior ideas
Your niece is suffering as her mother says its nothing so perhaps its going to be down to you to do something?
Start keeping records of every incident and as for the other person she's "mistaken" for you could perhaps try to find out how schooldays are for her
Also speak to the head of year because if the other kids work out she's not liked she could become a worthwhile target as chances are this teacher will defend them
I get your sister wanting her head down but perhaps rather controversially she should never have had a biracial child as this things like this may always be in the mix just under the surface especially with the way things are now politically
Where I live, you see this where the mother out with the child seems to be embarrassed by them and perhaps although your sister obviously loves her is not comfortable enough to stick up for her this time and have to face a obvious racist who's percieved as more "powerful"
Let me tell you as a black mother of 3 over 40 years ago I fought my kids corner every damned time. Its a pity shit like this still occurs
Good Luck
And tell your sister to tie her courage to the mast; she really now needs to bite that bullet

The teacher is mixing up the names of the only two mixed race children in the school. Unless they also do this with other children it smacks of ‘you all look the same’ and robs both children of an individualised approach from that teacher because they can’t remember who’s who. It’s racist. It’s also lazy.

The fake tan thing is racist. I'd be fuming. I don't understand why people are saying the name mix up isn't that bad...It is bad and it definitely builds a picture.

I agree a complaint needs to be made, but unfortunately, you can't force your sister to put one in - It does sound like you're a great support for your niece.

Hmm the fake tan comment is clearly racist and I agree the mixing up of names with the only other mixed race kid in the school will be unpleasant for both Sarah and Jenny. It’s true it’s easily done for teachers, but as they are the only kids who are mixed race in the school it kind of says to them that they are interchangeable as a mixed race kid.
i have a memory, I used to work in a lovely small staff team of mainly Black colleagues. There was one other staff who didn’t look like me but was white (ginger lol) and one colleague kept mixing us up. It jarred a bit at the time that she seemed to think we were the same (white) and that was without any structural racism going on.
Youre a lovely auntie to your niece having her back 😀

Or she was wearing fake tan on that day? If all her friends were using it in the toilet at break time they do maybe she was too

Leave it to the parents to decide what to do. None of your business actually baje knows her daughter better than you and knows how likely she is to twist the truth (or not!)
If she isn't willing to complain to the school I suspect there may be more to this

Bare legs? With the cold we have outside. Not very credible.

I see many girls with ankle socks and bare legs even in the snow. It's very believable!

I am a parent to a mixed race child who is milk white in winter but who will have a gorgeous tan after a day in the sun that lasts all summer long.

If any teacher told my child she was breaching policy and wearing fake tan, I would be having words with the headteacher about discrimination based on her skin colour, request training for the teacher and asking the school to explain to me how this can occur in 2026.

Maybe she was doing PE? All the local schools near me the girls wear socks and skirts (if not trousers). It’s very credible.

I'm getting angry on your behalf.
Ask them about their anti-racism policy. If it's a good school it should be pinned up in reception. What an absolute knob of a teacher. They need to be fired. Unacceptable.

That's disgraceful. I used to work with someone who couldn't remember the names of the only two black women in a team of 20. They also looked nothing like one another except for skin their tone but he obviously couldn't see past that. We were all aware that this guy was a twat, and he didn't last long, fortunately

aModernClassic
Your blond child may have got mistaken for another blond child
But
Willing to bet it wasn't done in a overt 'got to pick on you and put you down' way by a teacher who assumed ignorantly and deliberately that true skin colour was fake tan?
As she'd never ever seen a brown child in her life thus far??

Fired? Really?

"Going ballistic" at a school is very rarely helpful. The over the top responses are not helpful either. Those who constantly see "micro aggressions" everywhere are bullies who create racism.

A polite letter to the school recording what has happened would be appropriate but there isnt enough yet to be certain the teacher is being racist. Expand on "She has also been a bit of an arse to my niece separate to this." and on how your niece "escaped detention". How and why is the teacher being an arse - that may confirm your suspicions. Did the teacher admit to and acknowledge a mistake over the fake tan? Maybe the teacher is racist, maybe your niece is seeing offence where there is stupidity. Either way making a great fuss now is unlikely to be helpful.

Dont teach your niece that every incident is racism. Ask about the background.

I'm a teacher, mixed race and 50 years old. I always get names mixed up, probably due to my brain fog etc.
However the comment about wearing fake tan is atrocious. When I was at school a cover teacher once asked me to take off my brown eye shadow.....I and my all white friends had to explain that it was simply my skin tone. I've never forgotten it but that was back in the 80s!

@DotAndCarryOne2 I am aware of that thank you. But I don't know if the teacher mixes up the names of other students who have similarities, that could be anything from height, hair colour, length etc etc. So I can't confirm it's racist or not. It is lazy.

It's definitely a thing, but this does happen to all races and I think we need to remember that

But not all races suffer from structural and systemic racism to the same degree.

Doesn’t SLT mean Speech & Language Therapist?! It does where I am!

I have a very small number of kids in my class, all same sex, all white and 4 of them have the same initial first name. I have to run through at least two names before I get it right multiple times a day so the name thing might be genuine..?

The fake tan comment is racist though.

This might be outing, if the male teacher is on here or his colleagues it might shake him.
There is only a handful of black students in my DD’s school. There is one black boy in her class, name begins with A, totally normal name, the ethical education teacher keeps calling him “Travis” as in Travis Scott, smirking, The boy doesn’t like it and neither does DD.

It's winter and they're teenagers.

Skirts and socks are shorter now than in mid-June. They just add a puffy coat with a massive furry trim on the hood and that solves everything, apparently.

It'll take a foot of snow for some of them to agree to wear tights, much less trousers - especially if they get driven to school, so don't have to concern themselves with horizontal rain at the bus stop.

I would, however, be slightly tentative about wading in on her behalf because what might be more accurate was that she was pulled up for uniform violations such as fake nails, lashes and a skirt barely covering her. I know DD1 tried that one once when she claimed she'd been accused of dying her very, very bright ginger hair and bleaching her eyebrows because they were so pale. (No, darling, you weren't picked on by the teacher for your specific genetic heritage, you were given a detention for having plastic glued to the ends of your fingers).