How to nip budding racism?

[ProbablyJustGas]

Howdy,

DH reported to me tonight that my now 6 yo DSD doesn't like a girl in her class because "her skin is brown and I don't like her hair". Her least favorite boys in class, she doesn't like them because they are sometimes mean to her. Her least favorite girl, not mean to DSD, but DSD doesn't like her skin.

Holy moly. Neither one of us have ever made an issue out of anyone's skin color, ever. It's not discussed in the house. Can't believe DSD feels that way - her childminder is "non-white" and DSD adores her.

Only thing DH and I can think of is that maybe DSD is getting a bit shallow? She has in recent weeks started to pick apart ladies on the 7 o'clock news and say things to me like, "Do you like her? I don't like her. I don't think her hair suits her."

DSD is blond, straight-haired and blue-eyed. Her favorite movies are the Barbie DVDs. Is it possible she's under the impression already that she is what our society calls pretty? Does shallow-girl queen bee syndrome really start this early?

I have curly (read: messy) brown hair and was too tall for boys in school. I prefered reading to socializing. Somehow I get the feeling anything I say to DSD will come across hopelessly nerdy. :(

Is she quite easily led? Could it be her friends at school pushing these thoughts into her head?

Quite often it isn't racism at this age, just fear of the unknown and, for some, herd mentality.

If you reiterate that it's so important that everyone is different etc hopefully she will take a more positive message than she appears to have picked up.

I used to be a brownie leader and had a girl who was v. v. racist. Came from the parents though.

It annoyed the hell out of me so I told her that if everyone didn't come from different places then we'd all be inbred and turn into mutants. And that I'd rather look a bit different than be a mutant.

That approach seemed to work too!

Thanks for the pointers, guys. We had a talk with her tonight about her comments. We spoke about how we like that everyone looks different, and she responded the most to her dad saying, "I think brown skin is beautiful," and then we showed her some videos of Beyonce, Emeli Sande, Alexandra Burke, Samantha Mumba, Kelly Rowland, and talked about how pretty and talented they are. Talked about how Emeli Sande studied medicine too. I do think she's just going through a preference, like HereIGo said, but hopefully that's made a bit of a dent.

Tried out the "mutants" line too, but it went straight over her head. Ah well.

As a black woman I think you dealt with that beautifully. I bet its just a phase and they'll be best friends soon enough.

The Nurture Shock book is really good on this.

Sounds like you've made a good start with this. Only thing I would point out - "Neither one of us has ever made an issue out of someone's skin colour... it's never even discussed in the house". I think many parents think this 'colour blind' approach is a good idea, but actually all it does is show children that race is an embarrassing issue that is not discussed, and leaves them open to playground discussions instead.

Keep talking with her! She'll be fine.

I've only read an extract from Nurture Shock but I thought that point about 'colour blind' was really interesting. Must get the book. My 3 yo Has started making observations - in the Chinese restaurant - 'these people don't look like us', 'daddy's browner than you' etc

I've read a lot of interesting things about this - definitely don't ignore it - you need to discuss that there are differences in people's appearances, just like we all have different noses, feet sizes, eye color, etc. If you don't discuss race at all, it leaves your child to deduce things for themselves which children are not very adept at doing!!

What great advice from everyone!

Yes, a really useful discussion - am off to Google the Nurture Shock.