My 6-year-old just had his first encounter with racism

A short while ago, my little boy told me something that shattered my world. I had been preparing breakfast for him, watching the early morning sunlight dappling his head, bent in concentration over the card he was busy making. Our companiable hush was only broken when he enquired how to spell "because," and then, several minutes later, "people." I looked over his shoulder -- the carefully inscribed message was poignant but full of kindness.

"Who's that for?" I asked. My son explained that it was for twins, one of whom had announced that they didn't want to sit next to him because they "don't like boys with brown skin." (The other thought it was rubbish.) At near 7 years old, he had just met racism for the first time.

Over the days and weeks that followed this revelation, I would find myself buffeted by a whirlwind of emotions, one after the other; an experience much akin, I now realize, to going through the seven stages of grief.

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Quid est Veritas? said:

That is not racism. That is just a bunch of kids creating boundaries and examining differences between self and other. You don't need to make a mountain out of a molehill, instead of just being the level-headed adult and guiding them.

A few years ago my son was upset in the bath when he couldn't wash off his tan. His closest friend at the time was a Coloured (in the ethno-cultural South African context) boy, and he essentially assumed that is how one gets different skintones. This was his dearest friend, and him not wanting to look as dark as him, was not some big rejection or deep-seated racist programming, rather fear of change if anything. There is no need to overevaluate the interactions of kids, or read them as symptomatic of big issues at that age, when they are simply navigating understanding basic human interactions. The kid's card illustrates it perfectly.

People are just being silly... and childish.

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ReesePiece23 said:

The reverse of that happened to me and my sister when we went to school in London. At that time it was considered unusual for white kids to go to this particular school. My sister actually got stabbed with a compass and was nicknamed "white bread".

I'm sure they feel guilty for it now IF they even remember. I'm sure they probably don't and have grown into fine people. The nasty kids always seem to in the end.

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