in thinking that children don't see in colour?

[Vallhala]

With thanks to Kimi for bringing this to mind.

I'm white and was brought up in an inner-city, multi-cultural environment, back in the days when to say someone was "coloured" wasn't an insult (just to give you an idea of how ancient I am!). My friends were just that - not black, not white, but friends. I knew no different.

I remember my cousin, when we were about 7 or 8, telling us all that her "Black friend was coming to tea". My Auntie corrected her... "V, it's not important that she's Black, all that matters is that she's your friend and it's rude to mention her colour". I went home and that sunny evening stood at the window watching my friends play outside.

"Muuuum!"

"Yes?"

"You know A?"

"Erm... well, yes, I should do, she lives 5 doors from us, is in your class at school and is your best friend!"

"But Mum! She's BLACK!!"

My mother roared with laughter! I swear that until that day I had never noticed that A was Black. Well, of course I did in a way, I have the benefit of vision, but I never saw A as "different".

For the record, many years later another child of that Auntie adopted a Black lad, whom he brought up alongside his natural-born (white) son. The "boys" are in their 40s now and from day one have referred to each other as "My brother".

It all makes me think... AIBU or is colour prejudice a matter of nurture and not nature? Or is my experience unusual?

night - definitely time to go - last post full of errors

I don't understand the Maggie Thatcher post either... Are you trying to compare and contrast the way we deal with gender and race?

Of course, society isn't shy at all talking about gender with children so I think the issues are very different.

I'm off as well, goodnight all

I don't know about that with the gender thing..........plenty of parents still do the "pink for girls, blue for boys", and businesses sell us things for "girls" and "boys" so the idea is still firmly planted in many children's minds.

DS1 onl in the last year or so accepted that women can be mechanics, racing drivers, etc etc, despite we having brought him up that it didn't matter what gender you are - this was something he learned from outside influences over which we have little control.

I do think US and the UK think differently..but I think in the UK perhaps it also encompasses class ...not sure...but the UK no matter its faults has embraced many people from differing back-grounds and colours...not perfect but things have happened in the US that have not happened in the UK..

"For all America's faults, minorities have achieved things there which they never would, or could, in Britain as it stands today. There are some rather obvious examples!"

My Margaret Thatcher post was in response to this comment; if that helps.

But what does it mean Multivac? I don't understand.

Tocs my DD wants a pirate tea party!..lol..I agree gender difference is something encouraged by society as a whole...but we as parents influence more than we know...I was really confused by the fact my DD wanted pirate tea pary..but what I realised was I have never given her limits...and why should I?

Sorry - it's late. I assumed the 'there are some rather obvious obvious examples' to refer to Obama, in the context of 'minorities achieving things they never would or could in Britain'.

And I was, rather childishly, reminding the poster that the current US president is 'just' mixed race. Whilst Thatcher - may her name be uttered only with shudders - was very definitely all minority.

And there's yet to be a female US president.

'Mixed race' is a minority group. They are not part minority. They are entirely a minority as defined either by size of the group or power of the group. You can't be 'part minority.'

I dont think you can judge a country's relative degree of racism by the fact it has had one mixed race president. That would be like saying "The Tories are less sexist than Labour because they've had one female leader." One swallow doesn't make a spring.

Also, comparisons between countries are made harder by the different successes of different racial groups in different countries. In terms of social mobility, one could argue that (generally) Asians have been far more successful in the UK than Africans/ West Indians but there are myriad reasons for that; the acceptance by a white majority to one over the other is almost inconsequential when you consider the other contributary factors.

Similarly, I am currently reading about Chinese migration to the US/ UK/ Australia, where Chinese immigrants have had very different experiences/fortunes. A lot of this is due to timing, exactly where they ended up, economic situation where they ended up, etc rather than differences in attitude of the native population.

This is not to say racism does not exist but I think it massively oversimplifies things to attribute all hostility between competing groups to pure racism.

Children definitely see in colour.

My DD excitedly shouted "Oh, chocolate face!" at a man when she was about 18 months old for all the world to hear.

I was mortified but she couldn't quite believe she'd discovered a man made entirely out of chocolate! The man in question didn't mind in the slightest.

ROFL at "Margaret Thatcher wasn't mixed gender as I recall"

My children def see the colour and have done since they were small, whether or not they actually care about it.

DD is very nearly four, she was playing 'reading eggs' yesterday and one of the word was 'tan' which was very tricky to explain......she has already been indoctrinated about suncream, she was convinced that her asian friend was heavily tanned after my explanation

Tbb i think that DD cares about the concept of colour as 'different' she is far more interested in the cultural and lingustic differences, dh (asian) speaks languages (white) i dont, her friend from above speaks a language we can't and she is desperately trying to self teach spanish with Dora's help, but this extends to some russian children at her nursery who are white.

i think children see in colour, they don't see beyond it though to it "meaning" anything about the person

children quite happy to say it was the white boy/black boy etc that did it just as a way of describing, in a way that adults simply don't, won't, can't

then they're told not to to be sensitive, which makes sense: but hopefully will get beyond it so you can eventually again say "oh you mean the white guy/Indian bloke" etc simply as a way of identifying without any hidden meanings attached

Yeah I think they see in colour but it doesn't really register. Recently my DS (2) pointed to the newspaper with a black man on the front and said that he was dirty. It was a pretty grainy picture though so it could have been a combination of a bad picture with his skin colour as he has never said it about anyone in the programmes on Cbeebies.

I remember when I was 5, the woman down the road from us used to walk me to school with her children as my nans arthritus was bad at the time. She was white and her DH and DCs were black. I remember vaguely noticing that she was a different colour to them but it didn't matter to me and I don't think I ever mentioned it. I don't think children really care until they hear it from others tbh.

"then they're told to be more sensitive" I mean

I am reading this thread with interest, last week I had the following conversation with my 3yr old DD:

DD: Some of the girls at my school have black faces.
ME: Yes, I know.
DD: I don't play with them, I just play with the ones like this (pointing at her own skin).

I was horrified. One of the reasons we chose the school was because it is one of the few multicultural schools in the area and I really wanted the children to be totally colour blind. This conversation taught me that maybe it won't happen naturally and maybe I need to talk more about it. I had just assumed that being in an environment with people of different races would be enough.

That will change with familiarity. Children like the familiar. Small word from you, and then time will do the job. Your daughter isn't a racist. Horror isn't quite the right reaction imo.

Course one hopes all parents think the same way or she might pick up stuff from other children and their siblings.

Comparing UK to US -- for all the States' melting pot status I believe the UK has a much, much higher rate of mixed relationships, partnerships, marriages than the US.

oh yes, of course they notice. They just don't care. That's the difference. So x has pink skin and y has brown skin and z has a cool lego set.

Friend of mine was pregnant, her little boy said "I want a black brother like X (my ds1)"

his mum is white, her partner is white. He didn't have a clue.

Racism is learned behaviour. Vile racism that is. Children notice things that are different from them and sometimes they can be alarmed / afraid of that. Because it's also basic human (animal human!) nature to be afraid of the unknown / different and to seek out the familiar. That's why thrill seeking is such a kick - because of the terror! (before someone says that's crap Heq - why do people jump out of planes )

That's possibly (wild speculation here!) how racism actually started! Like - have you ever seen animals turn on, say, an albino animal? or birds peck one of their own to death because it's different in some way?

If 'they're' not like 'us' there's something wrong with them. 'They' should be like 'us' because we're fine, alright and dandy. If they're not like us, maybe we start wondering if we're ok. We can't have that! So there's something wrong with them. They're different. They threaten us simply by existing because we question ourselves, our looks, our way. They have to be 'wrong' otherwise maybe 'we' are.

Human beings are not - as a group - smart enough to work out that it's perfectly possible for all ways to be right.

That's why we kill each other over whether jesus wore brown sandals or blue ones. (iyswim)

When DS1 was in yr2 he was going on a day trip with school. my brother being a wind up merchant was teasing him about spying on him to make sure he was behaving and said to him

"how will i recognise you as you will all have the same uniform on"

DS1 replied
"Don't be silly uncle M, I am the only one with blue eyes"

to me this shows children don't see colour he was the only white child in a class orf 30 black children and 1 indian child....

See, Lady, I would argue that he did see the skin colour, but it was so unimportant that eye colour was what he thought of first. If you were to ask him what the other kids skin looked like, he'd not say "I don't know", he'd say brown or whatever. He just didn't care. The eyes are also different colour, he mentioned that instead.

Only adults mention skin colour as the main difference because we've learned to treat it as such.

Heqet, I didn't realise my whole post was not there, what it should have said is..

to me this shows children don't see colour as important he was the only white child in a class orf 30 black children and 1 indian child