DS making racist remarks, help and advice wanted please, he is nearly 4.

[solidgoldbrass]

Over the past week or so he has said one or two things that made me wince slightly but I thought I might have been being an over-anxious white liberal, but tonight he said that a visitor to the house was a 'monster' and when I asked why he said 'Because she's got a black face'.
We have had a Little Talk about how people have different coloured faces. I have reminded him of all the people he knows and likes who have black or brown faces. I have told him that it is not nice to say that people who have black or brown faces are smelly, or monsters.
And I am trying to track where he is getting this stuff from. It seems to be another child in his nursery (which is not all-white by any means). Please advise me on what to do next.

My instinct would be not to make too much of it with him, beyond what you have done i.e your Little Talk. Otherwise it may risk him doing it for attention (which is what it really is rather than racism.) Keep it low key with him if he does it again.

sounds like you are handling it fine. hopefully it'll stop as quickly as it started

Yes be careful not to make too much of it. Obviously speak to him about it, but as with swearing, if they get the idea its Very Bad Indeed then it can make it worse.

Could you maybe raise the issue with the staff at nursery - not as an accusation towards another child but as a general concern that he was hearing these views. They will probably be very supportive and do work with the group (ie stories, circle times) about tolerance etc.

Not really helpful but interesting anyway - my mum tells me that when I was 5 ish, a litlle girl from school came to play. On seeing my black dolly, she announced "My dad hates black people". To which my mum smiled and said "Well, we don't". Anyway, I don't even remember it now, possibly because it was handled very calmly.

my DSS starting talkin g about 'green' kids at his reception class,

took us ages to realise that he meant mixed race kids (most of the kids where black)

we asked the teacher and he said that the mixed race kids in the class had decided in a game that they were green.

he advised us to just say, oh you mean... blah blah she isn't green she's mixed race

and leave it at that...

he was one of the few white kids and they were ghosts for a little bit, this was part of a game that they had made up

ask nursery maybe it's part of a game too

Also see here (American) and here for ideas.

my dd this at a similar age. she told me she didnt like a boy at her nursery because "he has black on him"

i explained to her that if we moved to say china she would be the only little girl there with white on her and asked how she would feel if the other girls and boys were nasty to her because of it.

the boys mum told me the next day that he had been having trouble fitting in but that day dd1 had gone over to him and asked he wanted to play i was so proud of her.

Yes I think I will have a little non-heavy word with nursery. He did say (and I was keeping the conversation very light and non-fussed) that a particular child 'doesn't like people with black faces'. SO it's possible that the nursery are already aware...