Mothers with children of colour - especially those of Afro-Caribbean heritage

[speedymama]

Just been reading this thread and Dominic Connor's comment at 9.22 just made me shake my head.

He said "Selection is good for middle class people like me who have bright kids with no real problems.
Governments of both kinds pander to people like me. If you allow any substantial amount of slection, it does rather follow that difficult kids will be more concentrated. Since they are often working class and coloured, that suits the Daily Mail and Labour party, and who really cares? To me it follows the a higher concentration of difficult kids who may often hyave parents who don't hlelp the situaiotn means thatthe kids who need the most help are put into actively hostile environments".

The comment "Since they are often working class and coloured" is insulting and outrageous (I thought the term coloured went out with apartheid). Am I the only person that feels that non white kids are demonised and tarnished as being trouble makers as well as a corrupting influence on nice middle class white kids who never put a foot wrong?

It really peeves me this attitude which is becoming more pervasive

Spedy - I am not the mother of a child with African-Caribbean heritage, but I would wholeheartedly agree that there is a degree to which "non white kids are demonised and tarnished as being trouble makers as well as a corrupting influence on nice middle class white kids who never put a foot wrong?"

But to be fair to DC I thought he was deliberately using the language of the Mail, or using what he perceives to be the mentality of a section of Mail readership, and that DC is being critical of / cynical about the fact that black and working class views / needs on education are often ignored in favour of Blair's pandering to the white middle-class vote.

i haven't seen th ethread this relates to but yes, 'coloured' is a very negative term.

without having seen what dominic connor posted in context i'm not sure it's fair to comment. however..

it does peeve me too, as there are plenty of non white familes who strive for excellence and high achievement from their children precisely because of the sort of predjudice they face as children, and then later in life. they want to equip their children with a decent education and a decent upbringing to give them the best possible start as being born non-white means they are already born unequal.

similarily there are huge swathes of white children who are, quite frankly, demons in the classroom, have no stable family life, no aspirations, no positive role models, etc etc.

OK Blu, fair enough. Admittedly I just skimmed the thread and that caught my eye.

Apologies to DC.

My point still stands though. In my local free rag, they love to highlight skin colour of non-whites, e.g. police seeking two black youths, but you always know when they are white because they are described as "having wavy hair and wearing a blue jacket".

My Boyfriend is South African & 'Coloured', in South Africa there are Whites, Blacks & Coloureds!

yes, that's south africa though. we all know the history there.

Spedymama - presumably you saw all the news about the report that came out last week demonstrating that black Caribbean children (specifically - not black African) were more haeshly dealt with in termns of exclusions for the same offences as other children in schools? It was complex - they were more likely to be involved in trouble in the first place than whit or African kids, but were then more harshly delat with than if they had been white of African. Which presumably then impacts negatively on their motivation to behave / do well.

But you are right - the demonisation has been quantitively and qualitatively proven by that research.

I don't like the term 'coloured' but I do agree with the sentiment. But unfortunately especially in London it is where there are large groups of ethnic minorities that the schooling is crap and the children are running wild. I've experienced it. My older two went to a school where it was 95% non white and learned pratcially nothing. But I do think it is more to do with impoverishment and lack of oppurtunities in some of these areas rather than skin colour.

We now live an area where my mixed race kids are a minority, and the schooling is far better, but the children aren't angels by any means! I was in our local shop last week hearing about a girl who has been bullied for three years and was attacked by a 12 year old white boy, who punched her repeatedly in the face. The schooling might be great, but the kids are little terrors. I think on the whole, the kids were better behaved where we used to live.

Kelly, in areas where there are few non-whites and urban decay plus poor schools, colour does not come into it. It just so happens in London where there are a great deal of social problems, those areas have high concentrations of people from ethnic background

I saw the report Blu and in my limited experience, there is a culture of why bother because no matter how hard you try, you will always be judged by your colour rather than by what you do. There is a pervasive lack of self-belief and confidence amongst too many of these kids and unless the underlying causes of this is addressed with honesty and openess, I fear for the future of many of them.

One of the first things that must be addressed is the fact that so many of them don't have fathers around. However, we must remember that guys like Tim Campbell who won the first The Apprentice show grew up without a father so that is not the whole story.

I was merely pointing out that in SA Coloureds are a race, they don't refer to themselves as 'mixed race' & a lot has improved there.

Poor children of any race lack self belief & confidence, I'm not so sure one can say it's all down to colour.

Although racism is still a huge problem & sadly also amongst Teachers!