Daughter accused of being racist

[Loopylou19861234]

oopylou19861234

Hello i am not sure if this is the right place to post but here goes.... i need advice please.
Yes yesterday I had a phone call from my daughter's stating that there had been an incident of a raciel nature full stop when I enquired what had happened I was told that during a game on the playground my 7 year old daughter had referred to a boy as the Black Boy this was used in descriptive nature not as an insult but nevertheless she was pulled out of class for the rest of the day but up for racial insults which is going on her permanent record and is being referred to the board as a serious matter I am very confused over this matter as I don't think it's true or correct that my daughter has been branded a racist by the school what can i do?

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Linky what you say makes perfect sense. But sometimes the way posters jump on people who say something innocently and explain they've never come across another meaning etc is rude. They don't discuss they lecture.

Discussion breeds lots of input and learning through lots of information.
Lecturing infantilises and shuts down any discussion.

Totally agree kidding, the people bashing someone who seems to have made an innocent mistake and takes it on board and says they won't use it again are very tedious indeed.

You aren't a better human because you don't believe someone who admits to making a mistake and says they'll learn from it.

@BigBlueBubble It isn't necessarily. It depends on who they are asking, in what context and how they say it

I used to work in a customer service role where I was the first person people using the service would see. I had several people ask me

"Where do you come from?"
"Luton"
"No, where are you from originally?"
"LUTON"

I was born and raised in England. I grew up here, went to school and university here. My children were born here. The only thing that would give anyone any indication otherwise is the colour of my skin

My predominantly white colleagues have never been asked this. They've also never had someone take one look at them and demand to be served by someone else.

Or had questions addressed to the new trainee standing next to them, despite the fact that it's obvious you are the more experienced member of staff

Well OP - why didn't she just call him by his name? He does have a name - doesn't he?

Did she know his name Op?

Mistress, my kids tend to know names for their own year, very few outside it. Hardly a stretch of the imagination that she'd want to refer to a child she didn't know the name of. That boy just dropped this water bottle/knocked me over/asked if we want to play football. Which boy small child? ...

catkins that has zero to do with why the OPs DD didnt use this child's name. If/when she answers the question (& I'm not the only one who's asked) then we'll know

I find it hard to believe the school would be so emphatic about this if it was just simply "the black boy". I expect there is more to this. I imagine the school might have a whole different angle to this incident.

Even the most innocent of words can be used to insult or abuse someone. Depending on the tone use, the stress placed on the word, etc. So depending on the context, a spade can be used as an insult as well as innocently.

Unfortunately, given the context here, I can see why saying "call a spade a spade" was seen as outrageous.

There are many people on here who are minimising racial abuse by claiming people are always looking to be offended. That explains why racism is rightly now seen as being covert and institutionalised. Everyone denies being racist because they see racism as mainly hurling verbal abuse or saying unkind things. People, and they are almost always white, who minimise the insults, the unconscious bias, etc are fuelling the survival of the most damaging form of racism.

Sofia, I'm not assuming white is the norm; it is. I'm not talking about schools or workplaces, but society as a whole. The fact that there are white children who go to schools were the majority of children are not white doesn't change that.

@Weightsandmeasures yes to everything you said.

Well OP - why didn't she just call him by his name? He does have a name - doesn't he?

We don't know the context at all. Maybe he was in a different class/year and she didn't know him. Maybe a new child had been told to speak to the school ecology rep (or whatever) about how to recycle her rubbish and didn't know anybody yet, so just asked the first person she met. Maybe she'd been told to speak to 'Tim, the school ecology rep' and asked somebody which one was Tim. However is the answer "It's Tim" to the question "Which one is Tim?" going to help.

TBH if this child is the only black child or boy in the school, all of the children would know his name so that story doesn’t hold anyway

Wow - Really???? Is that the norm where you're from - that a black person would be paraded around and introduced to everybody in the school/company/town as a huge point of interest, purely because they're black? I've never lived anywhere where that would have been a thing in any way.

All I'm getting from some of these replies is that being black is somehow a negative characteristic that you shouldn't ever mention, in case you expose a black person to the shame that they apparently should feel for being black. In the same way you'd say 'the man with the blond hair' or 'the tall lady" but would (I hope) not mention a negative or less than desirable characteristic such as "the fat woman" or 'the spotty lad'.

Surely, the best way to encourage and perpetuate racism is to make an issue of the fact that people have different skin colour and tell people that you mustn't make mention of it, in case they feel ashamed or embarrassed about having skin which happens to be a certain colour, as we all have.

Maybe if we could all be like children naturally are and just learn to observe that people have different skin/hair/eye colours, different heights, hair types, wear/don't wear glasses/hearing aids etc. etc. but, beyond using them as a simple descriptor to point out to a stranger which is the person they've asked for, not to care less about them, we could get over it and start working towards a racism-free world. Differences and diversity are not the problem - prejudice, discrimination and treating people differently because of them are.

Ok .. sorry for late reply.
I will try and answer your questions.
She was playing a game at dinnertime with a few friends ... the boy in question wanted to play... when her friends asked who wanted to play she stated the black boy.... no she did not know his name and to her it was just a descriptive narritive. She is extremly upset that she was called a racist as am i as she fully understands what that word means. Thank you

Also it was the school who rang me a full 24 hours after the incident had occured . And yes it literally was that she refereed to him as the black boy as she wasnt aware of his name at that time

sorry but it does seem a bit unnecessary to call him black boy when any other descriptor could have been used or even just pointing and 'he wants to play.' She would never say the white boy. It's subconscious perhaps but that is how racism thrives; by flippant comments being legitimised or ignored. If he is the only black child in the class or group then singling him out for that characteristic is othering him and using said characteristic to define him. It's not on and whilst it's harsh to hear that your child is racist look on it as an opportunity to discuss why it could be considered mean

Webuilt you knew the context no more than I did so your guesswork answer regarding my question is irrelevant.

& OP I still can't fathom why your DD didn't point and say 'he wants to play'.

Generally tho, the issue is white people who want to call black people however they please, in whatever context and tone, and then dictate how we should feel

Then they compound their ignorance by coming out with that professionally offended thing. At least Alf-Garnet was a pisstake, there are some real ones walking around who take pride in ignorance

I wouldn't like to be called the black girl or black woman. I manage to be in my country and not call non-black kids (& there aren't many white people there at all) 'the white kid. Then again I'm not afraid to ask 'whats your name's.

Racists are just stupid. Due to that stupidity then yes, some people may be called out for racism even if they claim they didn't mean it in the context that stupid racists do.

If the stupids shut up life would be a lot clearer wouldn't it.

Maybe the boy was upset at being called 'the black boy' for all we know. The teachers must've explained in full, surely.

Starry my husband is white British but has an olive complexion. People assume he is mixed race (he isn’t) and he gets asked The Question all the time. It is infuriating, particularly as people then get pissy about the fact he “won’t tell them” (there’s nothing to tell, he’s from Wimbledon and so are at least the last four generations of his family). I’m not sure why people can’t see how annoying it would be.

If you are a recent migrant then it may seem like more of a reasonable question. But it is asked of all potentially non-white people, because if you are non-white you can only be a recent migrant, the idea that you might live here is too mind blowing for some people.

I'm amazed that people didn't get this. The 'joke' is in the double meaning of the word spade, it can be innocent as in the phrase, or it can be racist, and the joke 'works' because its being used to mean both at the same time

I do wonder about quite how dim people are sometimes. Or rather how keen to pretend to not understand simple language concepts and how not to be an offensive prick. Then blame people calling out prejudice for being permanently offended

Jesus. It's not that amazing that people don't "get" a double entendre when they don't know the second meaning of the word!

Many people have posted saying that they've never heard of spade being used as a racist term (myself included). It may well be a regional/generational thing, because I have experienced and witnessed plenty of racism over the years, and yet I've never heard the word spade being used in that context.

Unless you think the mixed race posters who have never heard of it despite being called all manner of other racist insults are just pretending so as to create an image of wide-eyed faux innocence while they bemoan the PC brigade and the permanently offended.

She would never say the white boy.
Imagine she would if there was only one white boy in the group she was pointing at. It's a very obvious distinguishing feature.

I do wonder about quite how dim people are sometimes. Or rather how keen to pretend to not understand simple language concepts and how not to be an offensive prick. Then blame people calling out prejudice for being permanently offended.

This seems to ignore the pertinent fact that there was no prejudice to call out. 3Grilsmama didn't know the racist meaning of the word 'spade' so how could she be using it in a prejudiced way?

What people were calling out was imagined prejudice. The hint of the vague suggestion of the ghost of prejudice.

If you're calling out imagined prejudice then you may not be 'permanently offended' but you might want to consider that your threshold for offence is a bit too low.

I was just watching love island Australia on catch up, and before the adverts it gives you a preview of what is in the next part, and so the voice over man says ‘so x calls a spade a spade’ in the context of telling it as it is! So I would say there are a lot of people who only know it in this context?

I'm black.

I've been referred to as the 'coloured woman', 'black woman', 'dark skinned woman' etc.

I see no issue if I'm the only black woman in the room. 'Black' is not an insult unless intended to be. I am all of those things above. Why would I be upset about being called what I am? I'm proud to be called black. Ok, I hate the term 'coloured' but it's still a fairly widely accepted term. My common sense tells me it's not racism and not to be bothered by it. I find it more embarrassing when someone tries to describe the only black person in the room by saying 'you know, the one in the purple hoodie, brown eyes, quite tall' etc etc. I want to scream 'DO YOU MEAN THE BLACK WOMAN?'

Based on your description of what happened, I would not say that this was a racist incident. If she was referring to him as the black boy when she actually knew his name, words should probably be had, as this IS othering, however from a 7 year old? I doubt racism comes in to it.

I might be in a minority here (based on my opinion, not because I'm black ) but I don't see an issue. Not a racist one anyway!

Also I believe that if I came home upset and cried to my father saying 'daddy I'm upset someone called me black today'

He would likely say 'but daughter, you are black. You should be incredibly proud of your heritage'

I don't think the school would have been contacted in the first place...

Seems crazy to me...
Where I work is 95% male. Professional office so all guys wearing a kind of grey uniform. There are about 50 people on my floor of whom 4 are black.
People have asked before where is X's desk? So I used to say at the back. And they would say where at the back? So then I said the tall guy... well there are several tall guys sitting there.. so then I used to say the tall black guy sitting at the back.
I felt terrible but I asked my DH who is super PC and he said it's fine to call people black.
I guess if someone had another distinguishing feature like one of the few women or red curly hair or had a beard you would use that to describe them?
It seems the school is seriously over reacting!