Racism - really shocked and sad at ds2

[roisin]

OK a bit of background, we live in a very mono-cultural town, which is very, very white, and very racist. For example the county has recently scored very highly on some research or other for racism, and I would hazard a guess that our town is the worst in the county. The newspaper interviewed 5 people on the street on the subject and they all replied words to the effect of
"Of course we can't be racist, we don't even have any foreigners in this town!"

We noticed this about the town when we first visited, and it really saddened us. But dh and I thought we might actually be able to change some opinions a bit. For instance in Oxfordshire if someone made a racist/sexist/homophobic remark at a party or something they would have 20 people down their throats about it immediately. Here they'd have 20 people nodding So dh and I do make a stand pick people up on their comments - though I have to admit dh is better at it than me.

Sorry, this is longer than I anticipated.

Tonight ds2 had a lovely school reading book about Australia, and then we came to a page about Aborigines, and ds2 said "They're bullies aren't they?" ...?!
I questioned him further and he said "They've got really horrible angry faces".

He didn't articulate much more, but I'm sure it was basically a racist comment. And of course I had a long chat with him about it.

I'm in tears writing this, it has really made me so upset. I'm sure it's a result of living in such a mono-cultural, narrow-minded, intolerant place. What can we do? Other than move?

roisin - I grew up in a very monocultural part of the country and I don't think it bread racism- it just wasn't something that was ever discussed as it wasn't relevant. When I eventually ended up working somewhere more multicultural I heard more racist comments then. TBH since moving back to a very mono-cultural area the woorst comments I have come across have been from people who used to live in the SE (far more multicultural than here).

I do think its important to talk to children about it- but don't assume that your worst fears will be realised. IME young children are generally very accepting of everyone and everything,

Roisin, how old is your ds2? A child can't really be racist, surely? Just because you live somewhere without an ethnic mix and your ds has no experience of other races/colours doesn't make him racist in his comments. I grew up on a small island (1,000 people - all white). I was completely shocked when I met black girl aged 11 on a riding holiday. Is that racist?

Oh bless you Roisin, I think that growing up with you as a mum he'll be open to everyone of all races. FWIW I really don't think he was being racist but i think it's great that you picked up on something and are being proactive about it.

My friends DD got upset once when she was passed a doll that had dark skin and said she didn't want to play with it because it looked funny, or something like that. She was only 3 and wasn't being racist but had never seen a dark skinned doll before and was unsettled or something. I can't remeber how her parents dealt with it now but realised they would have to do something.

Lottie has always been around both white and black people and she has dolls with different colured 'skins', and I also bought that book 'Everyone is different', or words to that effect.

RabbitProofFence is mostly traumatic early on when the children are taken away from their mother, which didn't upset my children, just me had to leave the room. I can watch it ok,now, though. Plus at the end, when we (adults) read (the subtitles) about what happened to the cousin (?Gracie?, never reunited with her family). But I don't think most children would really gather how horrible the Australian policy was of trying to dilute out the mixed-race, so it wouldn't upset them. My 5yo & 3yo have never been upset by RPF, anyway.

Oh, roisin, don't worry, he's just a little kid. They say stuff. They get older, learn more, and change. It doesn't make him a racist.

As a 4yo living in Switzerland, where there were at that time no black people at all (at least not that I'd ever encountered) I was hospitalised on a visit to England and remember being scared witless of the Carribbean nurses in the UK hospital. Really scared senseless, partly by the fact that I couldn't understand their accents, and partly because I think I interpreted their more upfront, ebullient manner as aggressive and scary. Did that make me a racist? In need of education and explanation, definitely, but racist? Surely not.

As a cautionary tale, take the following. Protagonists: a pair of sisters (7 and 5) from my kids' inner-London primary (40% black, 40% white, 20% anything and everything else) Praised by Ofsted for racial harmony, etc etc. Both kids are of mixed parentage, mum dark skinned mixed race, dad white and gingery. Sister one is white, with red hair, sister two brown-skinned with dark brown hair. A scenario develops where sister two comes home complaining of racist bullying involving white girls not letting her join their games because she's brown. Mum up in arms (understandably) preparing the speech she's going to give when she storms into the headteacher's office the following morning. Whereupon sister one pipes up: "Well, me and my friends don't play with the brown girls either."

There may be a moral in there somewhere, but the most obvious one is surely that kids say all kinds of nonsense. Yes, they need to be told and shown and encouraged out of it, but if a mixed-race kid in a mixed-race family and a mixed-race primary school can come out with this kind of thing, you really don't need to be beating yourself up over your ds's comment.

Take care.