Advice on how to talk about race

[katienana]

My 5 year old ds has just come home from school and out of the blue said "the reason I don't like black people is they all have a funny smell."
Obviously I challenged this and said, well I don't agree, and that is a very rude and unkind thing to say but he was very insistent. I am mortified. About a third of his class is ethnically diverse, his nursery was the same. So its not fear of the unknown. I assumed that because we aren't racist, and he was always mixing with different ethnicities, this would not be an issue!
I don't know what to say. Should I mention it to his teacher? Ds is very stubborn and I am so worried in case he upsets one of the other children.

Anyone?

Maybe he has heard this from someone at school. I suggest talking to him about how we all look different but are really the same and emphasise on not judging everyone. Difficult chat for a 5yo but it can be done

A few things I would probably go for:

We all have a different smell, does mummy smell the same as daddy, granny, man down the road (options endless)

Everyone's different and not even white people have the same colour skin as each other but describe features that are the same as your son, eyes, nose, mouth etc blood is red, so and so likes reading, playing games etc

Good luck

Thanks. It's so awkward as its like he's made his mind up he doesn't like certain children and decided that it's because of their race. I know he has at least one friend with darker skin. We have talked quite a bit about genetics as he and his brother have totally different colouring despite having the same parents! I could bring that up again as its a good example.
I was thrown earlier because he just kept arguing his point and getting upset and hearing him insist something which is offensive was difficult to say the least. In the end I said I'll think about what you're saying and discuss another time.

He hasn't met them all so he can't say they all smell.
Don't deny his reality... maybe someone has a bad shampoo he doesn't like. Or maybe it's just a shampoo he isn't used to, yet. Probably if you say: which child smells? He'll name them. Probe him for specifics.

Then say about the kids he didn't name, "Does Amy smell? does Aisha smell? Does Meena smell?" starting with the white kids & working some names of non-white kids in there as you go along. Most won't smell. Point out what he said, maybe some people smell but that's not b/c of their skin colour, and how we smell is only temporary anyway.

Point out that maybe he smells bad to other people but it would be very rude of them to tell him so. So he shouldn't tell people that, either.

Not quite the same as we aren't white either but mine kept saying the recent immigrants were all babies and they didn't like them as they don't speak the local language. We explained it from the other kids point of view, to them our kids speak gibberish and are weird babies. 4yr old gets it (long term), 3 yr old has to be reminded most days.

Could you explain that we all smell weird to other people?