Black working class boy

[Anthonysmummy1234]

In a few schools I've visited it seems as if my son will be the only black child in his class, and part of a working class background, when he starts reception.I worry if this will be a problem. Any parents where there child is from an ethnic minority group and one of the only ones in a class?

[mrz]

I think it might just be you

[user789653241]

My ds goes to school where 90% or more children are white British.
Some people(parents) never seems to mix with us, but that's OK.
My child is mixed race, but his friends doesn't seem to care, and lot's of parents don't either.
We can get some minor racist-ish comment some times, but I don't care.
It's their loss. I only take it seriously when it's targeted against my child.
He may not be white British, but he is British, as much as other children are.

[Alfieisnoisy]

Tbh I prefer a more diverse population in a classroom.

DS is white but his primary school was very diverse and he loved it. It was a catholic school so some of the children had that in common but not all. It was pretty diverse in terms of class too.

I get what you mean OP but I think a lot depends on the school. Our school was great and did loads of stuff to celebrate the diversity. As a result it's a non issue there...but the school itself was very diverse:..about 40% non white children (I think).

[Bubbletree4]

I would say that when you start school, the playground can be really unwelcoming (for adults!). Not to do with race, but just to do with the environment. I remember picking up dc1 on the first day and I tried to smile at people but everyone ignored me with one woman i vaguely knew putting her back to me. I came away with a headache.

In general, 4yos these days don't care about the colour of a friend's skin. If they do, it's quite worrying because it indicates they might have racist parents. I have only ever met one racist child, aged 8 and her mother seemed openly racist so it's not surprising the child has those views. My dc go to a school which is quite diverse, perhaps 1-2 black dc per year group but many more Indian dc and about half white British. I had to explain what racism was when ds read about it in a book when he was about 7/8. He was really shocked that such a concept even existed, the kids had been perfectly fine all those years.

I don't know any 4yos able to think or care about about what social class their friends are. When dd went to school, the kids were comparing what characters they had on their pants! Dd has realised now that some people live in gigantic houses, as has ds but still at the end of primary, none of them say anything about it. The parents do, mind, but you can't do anything about that!

[drspouse]

4yos these days don't care about the colour of a friend's skin. If they do, it's quite worrying because it indicates they might have racist parents

If by "care" you mean "think one colour is better than another" then you are probably right except where they have never seen children whose skin is another colour. Children tend to think that what they see around them is natural and normal.

If by "care" you mean "notice" then of course they notice. They notice what colour people's hair, eyes, and clothes are. So why wouldn't they notice skin colour?

Like I have already said, if you don't talk about skin colour in a positive way, the only people talking about it are those talking about it in a negative way.

[Anthonysmummy1234]

I'm definitely not making my child a pioneer.
I agree with majority of what Drspouse has said. People are acting like people are color blind and this issue is one that does not exist it does.

I think it's hard for a lot of people to understand, because they are not a minority in the world, they are in a world which is ruled by people that look like them, in systems which benefit them. So I commend those parents who are white with mixed children and understand that this is an issue.

It's like men understanding everything a women goes through in the world "/ many can sympathise and understand some struggles and equalities we face, but many can't or choose to act dumb and blind because it's hard to see something when it's not a problem to YOU or even more so BENEFITS YOU!

I'm not a Muslim but I can understand how these group of people have been made to be a scapegoat for countries such as Britian and America because of sheer greed! Oh it's okay to go there and kill many people incl children destroy villages but THEY are a problem in your country. When a Muslim person commits an act it's terrorism but when a white person kills a group of people he was a lovely guy but is mentally ill. People need to shake themselves out of their bubbles these inequalities exist.

Okay people are talking about diversity and mixing. Didn't you read my list of friendship groups. I'm all for that hence the reason I stated I wouldn't want to send him to a school 96% any one thing.
The school across from my house is 96% Somalian Muslim children. I automatically didn't want to send him there either because I'm British Born Caribbean, my parents are also British born and the only language we know is English. I'm not religious or follow any religion but we come from a Christian background and follow Christian holidays. Also it's a school where English is most if their second language and my child's first and only. So even though there would be brown faces like him culturally very different and he may be ahead while the others are playing catch up(in terms of language)

The schools that are predominantly white some being really good bothered me that the lack of diversity and although him and these children will share the same language and holidays but he can't identify with anybody that looks like him, it would be an issue he is four aware of his colour not a racist!

[BrendaFlange]

Weird for a London school to be so white! How come?
DC go to a very diverse london comp, and there seem to be no issues around race at all. However I do notice that the (multi racial) friendship groups tend to cluster around class. Which is not to say that anyone is bullied or anything (of course there are outbreaks of bullying but the school is swift and effective in intervening) , I mean there is no ostensible talk about people of other class.

[pinkdelight]

It's somalian Muslim, brenda not white. I know most people assumed white but I sensed when OP was saying "I wouldn't want 96% of anything" that it would be another ethnicity. Strange to define as 'Black working class' when Somalian would presumably define as black and working class can still be (and may well be largely) Muslim. So in the bigger Venn diagram, the local school may in fact be majority black working class, but that's not the issue after all. It's so complicated, I guess most people like OP just want a mix, or people like them, or at least not 96% of anything they find unfamiliar. But in London I still struggle to see how it can't be more mixed. Unless it's a Muslim faith school, it will still be broadly Christian in ethos, and surely year on year it can't be almost entirely Somalian muslims who get in, unless your entire neighbourhood is that ethnicity/religion.

[Anthonysmummy1234]

Also to add I've worked in nursery and as a Teaching assistant and you'll be shocked some of the crap I've heard out of children's mouths and I've also been amazed at how well children have got along and accepted each others cultures.

Last week in the school I was working at in Putney London was international week. The school is very mixed different races different class but everyone get on sooooo well. Children came dressed from their cultures, brought in food. There was no comments at all, just cheers and clap at excitement at their friends outfits, eagerness to try the different foods.
They never asked why I had a huge Afro instead it was miss we love your hair or a little mixed race girl saying she has hair like mine.

However in Richmond a summer play scheme with children who are well to do (majority white middle/upper class). The most common girl in the class suddenly realised I was black "Miss, you are black starts laughing"
I said I've been here for weeks have you just realised anyway yeah we are all different
" ergh I don't like black, black is dirty haha"
I said get off my lap then, and gently eased her off. I never told any staff or even mentioned it to her parents, I just shrugged it off.

Another child in a school in notting hill again mainly white well to do, said "miss smile" as if she just noticed something, so I smiled again "why is that bit brown and that bit pink" I guess she was talking about my gums or top lip that is darker than my bottom. (The school had another black lady that had worked their from the girl had started)

Okay when I mentioned to friends we would have a little laugh about it and they'd be like maybe they haven't seen any black people before, I'd be like " are you crazy! they live in London!"
Okay some of you would say they're just kids, there is no malice, okay I get that! but to my child who does not yet know himself like I do. Will he start questioning these things, like what white people look like is the 'norm'
but maybe white teachers/people have had black children ask them about differences, but to be honest, it's weird from an early age that they felt like they were how something was 'supposed to be' and this is evident in studies like the dolly test. Asking all coloured children questions, asking them to point to the dolls of different colours, who would you like to play with? Who is good/bad? Who is smart? And majority choose the white doll for positive things and the black doll for negative things. The last question was which one looks most like you? the black children reluctantly choose the one that looked like them (basically showed what others thought about them and most worryingly what they thought about themselves) I blame parents, market/advertising and mainly the media

I want my child to be confident, comfortable, and able to form relations with all people, whilst having a positive image and knowledge of himself. I tell him he is black and beautiful, smart, strong, intelligent all the damn time so he knows!

[areyoubeingserviced]

I am white, but deliberately chose schools for my children that had a mix of ethnicities.
Even the Catholic primary school has children of different faiths.
However, if you live in an area which is predominantly White , the likelihood is that there will only be white children at the school.
If I were a black parent, I would not send my ds to a school whereby he would be one of the only black children in the school .I have friends whose black or Asian children have had issues with this, particularly in terms of the stereotyping of young black males as being rude and aggressive.

[Racundra]

My youngest has always been the only white boy in his class. (Big city, very diverse). Never been a problem, has lots of friends, they all play with one another, all get invited to parties etc.
That said, the rest of the class is made up of children from many cultures, not monogamous as in what you're describing. Perhaps that would be more of an issue, and he'd feel more of an outsider?
Tbh, not being good at football causes more problems than his skin colour ever has!

[areyoubeingserviced]

Great post Anthonysmummy

[Anthonysmummy1234]

No pink delight my initial post was about two predominantly white schools that were quite middle class.
Well i was giving another example being the school right across the road from my house, and although extremely hard to believe, it is majority Somali may not be 96% exactly but it's majority Somali, they have special groups in the school so I think it attracts others. Also a school 3 mins walk away which is catholic is predominantly white so your shocked how it can be, but it's like that!

You state that the Somalians are also black and working class(also I don't know how you came to that conclusion) black yes! but not which class they are all from, my problem is not with Somalians or White or black Caribbean, I would like a diverse mix which more likely reflects my experience growing up in diverse London.

[Anthonysmummy1234]

Well put areyoubeingserviced and thank you.

[BathshebaDarkstone]

In my DC's classes they don't seem to notice each other's skin colour, but I don't know how typical that is.

[Racundra]

Sorry- I meant homogeneous not monogamous!
Brain is fried...

[CorBlimeyTrousers]

We are white and my son's school is about 50/50 white/South Asian (if anything more Asian children than white) because that is the area we live in, with a small number of black children. He is 5 and yes he certainly notices skin colour and has done from age 2 or 3 (when one day he was trying to wash his skin to make it brown like his friends). I don't think he associates a particular skin colour negatively but I don't know for sure. He mainly has Asian friends. Interestingly a white mum in the class has recently made a big 'thing' that there are race issues in the class. I haven't been aware of this but I have noticed a somewhat cliquey group of white boys. But I didn't think this was a race issue (my son is not part of this group) but because they have older brothers who are friends and attended the same nursery.

If I'm honest I wouldn't want my child to be in a tiny minority at his school. If the school was a lot more Asian than it is I would prefer somewhere more mixed. So I am not one of the white people on this thread saying 'oh it doesn't matter, no one notices'. But equally I prefer my white son to go to a school where are are black and minority ethnic children too not just white. But that's a luxury of living in an area that is quite mixed and with good relationships between different groups. If there isn't such diversity locally and you are in a minority I would suggest having an open conversation with the school about how they support all children to get along and feel comfortable with who they are.

I also think the class point is very interesting. I wish there weren't class differences but I think the reality is there are. We live in a middle class area and my white child and his Asian friends have that in common.

[Anthonysmummy1234]

Brendaflange I'm not sure how it's like that. I live in fulham where you have housing estates, and a lot of people from fulham that we're white working class and black Caribbean British working class growing up when my mum did she's 51. My sister told me her white friend 21 went to primary school there and that there was a lot of Somalians, my sister said there are a lot of Somalians in my area Me and my other sister (who lives there) said that we actually don't notice that , when I go down north end road it is extremely diverse. We have the white market stalls selling fruit and veg the old English way " poun of strawberries der a poun" in a very london accent, you have the black British Caribbean who obviously grew with them in the area chit chatting with them buying from the stalls. There is an Ethiopian shop, Turkish, Iraqi, English, Caribbean food shops. Lots of AsianArab shops selling meat and fruit and veg, white butchers, there's everyone, I love it! Also fulham has become very affluent so loads of people with money live stone throw away. It's near Chelsea and Central London. So my gran who is black Caribbean brought her house years ago when it was thousands but held on to it where most people that buy a house on that road it will cost them millions. I however got a council flat on a housing estate and live 5mins from my nans now million pound house. So I'm Thinking that's how the mix of all came about, and some schools gear towards different types.

[Anthonysmummy1234]

A lot of the diverse schools I've worked in, colour is not an issue, nor is class amongst parents.

[Anthonysmummy1234]

Corblimeytrousers yeah you've got it exactly!!! I'd just like a good mix.


My number one choice now is going to be a school that is really good and really mixed in terms of class, religion, colour and race.

The other two schools the predominantly white ones were excellent also, it would of been like him getting a private education for free :) and the other was like that but he'd learn French, as it's a billingual school( the French part of the school is fee paying but free to borough residents) . I'll give them a miss and just do my part as a parent to educate him, and give him experiences, as it's not just down to the school for them to get educated.

[pinkdelight]

"you state that the Somalians are also black and working class(also I don't know how you came to that conclusion)"

I don't state or conclude that at all.

[pinkdelight]

I was careful to use conditionals - can and may - as I wouldn't presume to know that there was anything other than the possibility, which you seemed to be discounting, as though working class was not applicable. But the briefest google just now turned up this from an ONS Labour Force Survey on London, so even though I still wouldn't state or conclude, the figures are out there.

"Somali men and women have the highest rates of worklessness among all groups shown here. 87% of Somali women are not in paid work, seven percentage points higher than Bangladeshi women, which is the group with second highest levels of worklessness. 62% of Somali men are not in paid work, compared to no more than 33% among men born in other countries are workless."

Anyhow, we agree that most people want a mix if at all possible. I'm not so shocked about the catholic school, although the catholic schools near here (south east London) are more racially mixed, and even amongst the whites there's a wide diversity from Spanish to Polish to Russian and so on. I think you've got unlucky to be in an area of London without such diversity in its schools.

[Anthonysmummy1234]

Oh sorry pinkdelight I noticed what you were saying after, sorry!

[Snossidge]

Bathsheba do they not notice height, age, hair colour, gender etc either?

[BrendaFlange]

My DC were 'minorities of one', ethnically, in their classes, but it was no issue because there was such a wide diversity within the class and no-one classification was a 'majority'. Lots of kids were minorities. The biggest groups were white and black British, but there were also S American, E Asian, S Asian, E African, W African, Egyptian, Polish and more. The local secondaries are like that too.