What would you do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This happened to my biracial (black/white) daughter OP. It started at the same age. She started saying she hated being brown and having curly hair. Transpired Her classmates were telling her she was covered in mud and looked like a warthog (they were studying them at school) because of her curry hair and brown skin. During black history month someone asked her if her grandparents had chains around their necks. She became so despondent that, in her own 5 year old way , she said “I don’t want to be alive because I don’t know how to be happy being brown”. She called all black people ugly.
It’s a very long and extremely painful story but we eventually, after a year of talking to the school, decided to move her to a private school where she was not the only brown person and it’s made the world or difference.
In these situations it’s very hard to bring about change because most of the comments made are by children who are just not used to people different from them and are curious. No one has explained these differences. If there is no one else like them they bear the brunt of these comments and it can be very damaging. I was advised by the school social worker, off the record, to remove her from the school because where these situations had arisen before they often got worse not better.
I hope you have a better experience than we did and are able to resolve the situation within the current school.

No one has explained the differences because if we try to talk to our white kids about black kids then we're racist. But of course they aren't blind so they see the differences and they aren't deaf so they hear the differences too. And I just hope like heck that they aren't in a room one day and blurt out something that goes through their head while they try to figure things out for themselves.

While the differences can't be discussed, the similarities can't be discussed either, and it stays some sort of Big-Thing-That-Can't-Be-Talked-About. And there will never be unity in this country with that.

You don’t talk to your white kids about black kids. You work- hard- to educate yourself that we live in a diverse country. Skin color, race, religion, national origin, language, etc. That way, when your kid encounters someone who looks different, your kid will not be ignorant and will not say ignorant things.

I don’t talk to my kids about race either. We are Asian.

We recently were doing a puzzle where there was an African American skater. We were trying to match puzzle pieces and call people the jeans family, brown jacket guy, green hat girl and I described one girl as the black skater. 8yo DS told me I shouldn’t say that because it is racist. I told him that I wasn’t saying anything negative and that the skater was black. It isn’t negative to be black. We also called one girl the Asian girl in the puzzle and DS didn’t have a problem calling the Asian girl Asian.

DS goes to a predominantly white school. He must have learned at school that talking about race is taboo.

What is the right answer then? Do we use racially based identifiers in appropriate context with our kids? If so, which ones are okay and which aren't? My 4 year old is in a very diverse school and sometimes references skin tone in context ("dark skin/hair" not "black"), and I don't know what to correct and how to correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope some black ppl realize that Indians are also of color. It drives me nuts when people say that Asians don’t face racism and that they are white.

Uh, what black people are you claiming don't realize that Indians/Asians are POC? I'm Indian and while I know I have faced my own share of struggles as a child of immigrants in the US, there is absolutely no comparison to the institutionalized racism that black people in this country face on a daily basis. Also, no one has ever thought I was white (and I am fair skinned with light eyes, so many people have thought I was Latina or mixed race).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I personally would not mention to the mom or school. It will become awkward.

My kids have had their feelings hurt over the years. I never confront parents even when their kids are little shits.

This is ridiculous. "Let's ignore racist comments because it might cause awkwardness." Please.

OP, please talk to the teacher. The comment is personal and hurtful enough that it obviously needs to be addressed. You are obviously level headed and not looking to have anyone punished, just educated. The teacher should be grateful for the opportunity to address this. School is where children learn how to function appropriately in society. Please help them.

Whether or not you mention it to the mother is up to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would talk to both the child’s parents as well as the school. This is not to be tolerated.

My children are half Indian and half white and this is not something I would (or will) take lightly.

My son is also half Indian/half white (I am Indian) and I agree that action needs to be taken with the school. But I would also teach my son how to respond if this happened to him - I liked the PP's post about identifying the other child's statement as racist, because that will get the message across, even with a relatively young child. This stuff needs to be nipped in the bud and I want my child to be prepared for these kinds of comments, which he'll face for the rest of his life. And TBH, I'm not sure that going to a diverse school solves everything. I went to an incredibly diverse public school (with a large Asian/Indian contingent) and I still often longed to be white while growing up. I realize now it wasn't for the skin color/hair color but rather what we all now identify as white privilege. Things are certainly better than when I was in school in the 80s-90s but we have a long way to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope some black ppl realize that Indians are also of color. It drives me nuts when people say that Asians don’t face racism and that they are white.

Uh, what black people are you claiming don't realize that Indians/Asians are POC? I'm Indian and while I know I have faced my own share of struggles as a child of immigrants in the US, there is absolutely no comparison to the institutionalized racism that black people in this country face on a daily basis. Also, no one has ever thought I was white (and I am fair skinned with light eyes, so many people have thought I was Latina or mixed race).

NP here. Also Asian and while I agree with you that the racism black people experience(d) absolutely can’t be compared to other POC experiences, there are also many people who don’t think of Asians as people of color. My own colleagues have told me to my face they don’t consider me POC. People on DCUM threads have said so- there was one thread the other day where that was repeated several times. It was shocking to me the first time I heard it but the sentiment does exist amongst some.

[Anonymous]

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/75/830897.page

To quote someone, I never thought of Asians as not-white until I started reading DCUM.