School handling of "racist incident"

[Valentinaz]

My DS is 7 years old. I got a phone call from school Friday evening saying that he has been involved in a "racist incident". I was obviously massively shocked and concerned as my son isn't even really aware of racism at his age, he has Kenyan cousins and has been around minority groups all of his life. I couldn't imagine what had happened so I phoned for a conversation to gather the facts.

On speaking with the head teacher she has stated that a child of a minority group has walked into the boys toilets and my son has said that they shouldn't be in there as its the boys toilets and they are a girl. (the child had long hair in a bun) On speaking to him he genuinely mistook the child for a girl and he has said he was confused and was only trying to do the "right thing" by telling the child this was the boys toilets.

At the same time, he was supposedly having a conversation with a friend in the toilets about animals and has talked about monkeys and how they don't belong in zoos they belong in the wild. He was speaking to another child who is his friend completely unrelated to the previous conversation. I'd like to just make it clear that my son doesn't know how the word monkey relates in any way to disgusting racist remarks. He has no idea how the word connects in any way. He still doesn't. Im not even sure if this is what really happened as it sounds so unbelievable.

Aparrently another child has overheard the conversation and has told a teacher about this, my son has now been punished and the school have stated they are doing a report on the incident as it was racist.

I feel absoloutly mortified by the whole situation. There were no adults present during any of this, this is all based on what the other two children present have told the head teacher. My son still, even after trying to explain to him, doesn't really understand what he has been punished for, he says he was only trying to tell the child it was the boys toilets.

On speaking to the school I've been told that they've already made the decision and a report will go on file about it and it's not my decision wether it's reported in this way. I feel this could have been handled by a simple conversation with my son about how we don't comment on others appearances and to explain how it could have hurt someone's feelings and an apology from him to the other child. Not a report which is sent to the govorners to say this was racist?

I feel so upset about this I've cried all Friday evening about the way it's been handled, I am livid that they are trying to say he has been racist.... Am I reading too much into it? Should I just let them get on with it or should I be taking some advice?

I'd like some thoughts from others on this if possible. I honestly feel like I don't want to send him to school tomorrow, I feel like they're trying to peg him as this awful child. There is no truth to this being in any way racially charged. This was a young child making a genuine mistake, he even now if asked will say he got into trouble for saying a boy was a girl..

I've tormented myself over this, what do I do? 😭

Intent doesn’t matter anymore. It’s how someone subjectively feels about an incident that is prioritised. There are obviously issues with this but then again people with good intentions can say some ignorant things. I think though in those cases having a talk with the person to explain things is better.

I would be annoyed too given the schools decision to label this a racist incident. The other point to note is that no teacher was present which I think is significant as they are acting upon what they are told by the other child and interpreting what was said. I would make a judgment as what to do as parent given - my own child's behaviour to date and at the way the school acts in general.

It's a bit of a stretch.
I wouldn't expect a 7 year old to understand the monkeys link. Yes perhaps it needs explaining following this but it seems very innocent? Is it just me?

I'm a bit surprised by the responses on here being honest. Perhaps I'm the uneducated one.

You misread my post about facts.

Your child was racist. The racist incident has to be reported. Whether or not your child meant to be racist is irrelevant. Those are the facts.

However, the talk about monkeys....it just doesn't ring true to me that two little boys, in the boys toilet at school, would be chatting about monkeys and and how they do/don't belong in zoos.

It's a massive, massive coincidence isn't it?

Huge.

The concept of white fragility might apply...

The concept of white fragility, is just that, a concept, a theory, churned out in academia, unproven and disgustingly divisive.

So many posters eager to believe that a 7 year old was being offensively racist rather than give him the benefit of the doubt.

OP don’t accept any punishment for your child. Resist this. This poisonous ideology is well bedded in within our institutions now and we must push back on it at an individual level. My child wouldn’t be receiving any punishment, I’d be writing to the school, governors and local authority to inform them of this. Hold your head up, you know your child isn’t “racist”. At worst he has said something he doesn’t really understand and you must have a conversation with him about that. At best he’s completely clueless of any offence his comment caused because it was innocent. Either way, at 7 years old he doesn’t deserve to written off as a vicious little racist as some on here are attempting to do. Sometimes I really wonder who exactly is posting on MN and if they even have children at all.

If this was any other kind of questionable behaviour everyone would be calling for second chances because he’s only 7. As soon as there’s a whiff of what might be possibly be interpreted as “racism” - but only by the new academic definitions, which have trickled down into mainstream - people lose their senses.

OP just ask them... but honestly, how could your child not know the main issue was something to do with monkeys? They would have asked him about this and if he's been punished surely this would have been mentioned. It sounds like your child is trying to sound oblivious. If it's a big enough deal the teachers would have spoken to them about use of the word "monkey" and explained how it is offensive.

I think your child might know a bit more than he is letting on.
Primary schools are relatively small places and I’m sure he will have seen the lad with the hair in a bun around, so to say he thought he was a girl sounds like a desperate attempt to get out of trouble!
I doubt he was being racist as such, but probably being mean about a lad having long hair.

Also, the monkey story? Really? Bit of a coincidence.
Children lie to get themselves out of trouble OP. I think you are being a bit naive.

I'm a bit surprised by the responses on here being honest. Perhaps I'm the uneducated one.

You're the sensible one and not soaked in divisive toxicity around discussing race. Keep on the road you’re on 😊

Your post is more unpleasant than most because you insist there must be intent and that the child must therefore be vicious in some way. How weird.

I think you're getting a hard time here.

Monkeys are interesting and it's normal for kids to talk about them.

They are in so many cartoons that my 3 year old and 21 month old watch.

It's completely feasible that your son had an innocent conversation about them in the toilet.

This is ridiculous.
My DD is mixed ethnicity. She knows some people are rude about brown skin, she's never told me it's happened to her but I assume she's just been rude back because that's her style. If she was the type to go to the teacher instead I would hope the children would get a telling off but unless it was really bullying I wouldn't expect a "note on their file".

If a child made monkey noises at her I think she'd know they were being rude but if they were just discussing monkeys in her presence I don't think she'd click. She's 9 and her school is very mixed ethnically. The boy was right to say he was upset but the OP's DS should just be told it's not a nice thing to say

My DS has ADHD and speaks before he thinks. We had a worried phone call from holiday club once when he was supposed to have said the N word. He will never have heard this, I'm sure. On picking him up we discovered they'd been watching a film and "you could see their knickers".

I think children should be free to tell another child they might be in the wrong toilets though as otherwise a poor girl might be very upset if she wandered into the ones with the urinals.

Honestly I'm suspecting very strongly that the child is Sikh ('of Indian descent' plus long hair) so his long hair is part of his religious and cultural identity and your son, whether intentionally or not, said something negative about that and that is a racist incident per definition since intent does not come into it.

You need to accept that, calm down and move on. Ideally reflect and take some learning from this.

Can't you imagine that its bad enough as a small boy being called a girl and others trying to eject you from the toilets when maybe you are desperate to go but even worse if that is based on something very intrinsic to you and your family and if it's on a background of other things having happened to you before. Try to get your son to put himself in the other kids shoes rather than dismiss his distress

It’s not a ‘note on their file’. It’s a note in a file. Children don’t have files!

I think children should be free to tell another child they might be in the wrong toilets though as otherwise a poor girl might be very upset if she wandered into the ones with the urinals.

Well I think the 'poor girl' would realise as soon as she saw two boys in it.

@Valentinaz You need to advise your child how they have upset other children so that they can avoid doing so again.

All the people getting their knickers in a twist about 'a 7 year old being labelled racist' are missing the point very badly

No-one is being 'labelled racist'

A racist incident occurred in that a small boy had a negative experience because of a judgement that another small boy made about his ethnicity/ culture/religion.

This incident has been anonymously recorded in an LA file somewhere so that the number of incidents can be tracked

OP's son has in no way been punished for this incident and no one has suggested he will be

This is just something for all concerned to learn from and not for people to get in a lather about.

If my child did something at school that made another child feel upset I would want to know and would want to explain to them where they went wrong so that they don't do it again

Why the frothing and upset??

OP I suspect the school has had to log it as a racially motivated incident as set out in their guidelines. This protects them from any come back from the parents/governors down the line.

I believe you said you are having a face to face with the head tomorrow. Take a notepad and take notes. Personally I would want to know exactly what was said and who heard the conversation. I’d be going to the meeting alongside your husband or partner, so both of you could be part of the conversation and nothing will get missed.

if a file has been submitted I’d want to know on what platform and for what purpose. Off the back of all the information I’d collected i suspect I would be going to the board of governors with a complaint. I think confusing a boy with a girl in the toilets is not a reason to submit a complaint of racism. It’s something that could be discussed in a PSHE lesson, but not something that would be worthy of a punishment. The conflation with that alongside a conversation about wildlife is the matter to really unpick. I’d want very specific details as to what was said exactly and the timeline as that is the potentially racially motivated comment.

Allegedly.

Your son's African cousins really have no bearing on his attitudes towards other races tbh. Having said that at 7 your child should be aware about what racism is, interestingly kids with minority heritages tend to find out racism exists almost always through a baptism of fire at a much younger age than 7.

The story/stories sound all bit-part and not entirely clear, you need to speak with the head to understand what exactly your son is being accused of doing or rather saying. Don't question your son when so highly charged about the situation, try to have a discussion with him about what happened without indicating you're stressed or anxious about it.

This 'incident' is a very good time for you to get your son up to speed about some realities about the world.

if a file has been submitted I’d want to know on what platform and for what purpose

Literally a one in a column on a spreadsheet given to governors and the LA.

300 children isn't a huge school, so I'm struggling to see how a child in that setting could genuinely have not seen the other child around enough to have worked out that they use things associated with being a boy and therefore are probably a boy.

Kids can talk about random things at random times, so I wouldn't be that surprised that two 7 year olds were talking about animals at a zoo in general, but it does seem a bit of a coincidence that they were discussing a particular animal that has particular associations, at a point in time close to having made some potentially quite unkind comments to a child visibly different from them.

It may be as you say, that your son doesn't understand racism or diversity, in which case you need to educate him. If he doesn't know about racism and how not to be racist, then he's at risk himself of getting caught up in racist behaviours due to not understanding what's going on and being vulnerable to misinformation.

The school needs to record incidents so they can see if there are wider issues and to assess what interventions and supports might be needed at school.

I can't quite believe that nobody here seems to believe that my son genuinely may have thought the child was a girl and made the mistake. Why is that so hard to believe?

Why do people on the Internet seem to think they know my child better than me? Im not blinkered. I know children tell lies, 99.9% of the time, I know when he's lying. He has ADHD and gives far too much away when he's lying. He also is known for speaking before thinking because of this. And I think that's exactly what has happened. He's spoken out when he has seen the child come into the toilet before really thinking about it properly.

He comes from a loving, well educated family, why is it so hard to believe that he would have acted innocently? I have already said that I would have been fine with him being spoken to or even disciplined because he has hurt someone's feelings. But reporting him as being racist was a step too far at his age and in this case..

I wonder why people think seven year olds should be so grown up and fully informed on these matters? He's aware of it sure, but not to the extent some here expect. He's basically still a baby... He's only just stopped wetting the bed for god sake.

He hasn't been reported as being racist, the school have reported that a racist incident has occurred.

It's a teaching moment about the damage wokeism has done.