Mangetout, I think your son was a victim of the Dr. McCoy Effect - when you give a factual statement, and the listener imbues it with all kinds of emotional baggage that cannot be assumed from the statement of plain fact that you just gave.
Funny I never notice how weird that song was. I grew up singing that song in Sunday school. To be fair, that was nearly 20 years ago, when we lived in a world that was perhaps less aware. (Plus I grew up in the South.) I can’t imagine someone singing it now without being aware of how inappropriate the lyrics are.
I once transferred a 6th grade girl to another class as a substitute by pointing out, “No, the black girl in the pink sweater.” She then told the black principal that I said, “Get your black ass out of here.” I was so indignant that the principal knew I must be telling the truth.
But she still tried to convince me that I should be more sensitive or some such.
This after I worked in the famous Compton, CA school district, in which teachers routinely referred to each other not only by “black”, but described each other by terms like “light skinned” and “dark skinned”. So it’s ok for one group, but I’m a racist pig for mentioning that blacks are not usually Latinos.
He’s an observant and talkative young boy
The comment was reported to me initially by the other boy (the one who thinks he’s a victim of racism). Both boys were in agreement that the comment was “your skin is a lot browner than mine”.
I’m sure they do, does that make it acceptable?
This is just a fact of life that some people need to accept – like Don Imus trying to divert attention away from him and towards those awful rap singers – people can talk about themselves in ways that it’s inappropriate for outsiders to do. Period. That’s life.
Maybe so but inappropriate does NOT equal racist.
Pretty much. It is a part of growing up. Bullying, especially constant bullying, is not. Nor are beatdowns with many-vs-one acceptable, but an occassional dust-up leading to a punch or three and some wrestling on the ground is perfectly normal 9 y.o. behaviour.
It very well might be perceived as racist, and perhaps legitimately so. The line between “inappropriate” and “racist” (or “sexist” or whatever) can be hard to draw in real-life situations.
You can’t expect your audience to “look into your heart” and divine your true feelings about race. Remember all that discussion about Michael Richards’s outburst a few months ago? I can’t say that his true feelings about race are fairly classified as racist, but to many people what his “true feelings” are just don’t matter.
You’re not equating actual racist statements with someone stating factually that one kid has browner skin than another one, are you?
All I am saying is that references to someone’s skin color without any apparent non-racist reason will often be perceived as having a racist impetus behind it. It’s something that is worth learning from a young age. In fact, it is worth teaching kids that it’s inappropriate, impolite (and often racist or sexist or something else) to draw attention to any person’s physical characteristics for no good reason.
I did not realize that the racist bar was set so incredibly low in the United States. Thank you for fighting my ignorance.
Their happy hour is really short too.
Hey, dude, I’m no carb-berater. But I do get my facts from the Department of Horta Culture.
You are my favorite person, ever.
I disagree; I believe that’s the top of the spiral into political correctness. It isn’t racist to innocently comment on the colour of a person’s skin and I will not teach my children that it is, just so that they avoid offending stupid people who think it is. I’ll be happy to teach them that there is no shortage of stupid people who easily misunderstand things, but that’s not the same thing.
I don’t know about Britain, but in the United States, race history is still an open wound and non-white people have good historical and cultural reasons to be suspicious of any white person who starts commenting on skin colour for no apparent reason. With a history of violent oppression and a present of unresolved issues, you don’t think it’s important for children to be made aware that (non-stupid) people might be sensitive to skin colour commentary? You think that has something to do with political correctness?
Forget racism. Among children, it seems to me that the most common reason for singling out an individual’s physical characteristics, unless it’s obviously relevant to something at hand (i.e., the track team comparing calf muscle development) is usually a form of group hostility. That to me is an obvious fact and it has nothing to do with the political correctness bugaboo. It seems to me important to teach children that they shouldn’t be singling out their peers for likely negative attention without good reason.
And I have seen in the professional workplace doofus managers needlessly commenting on physical characteristics, whether skin colour or general physical fitness or anything else, for no reason. It makes everyone uncomfortable. Do you think it the “top of the spiral into political correctness” to teach that this kind of personal commentary is likely to be inappropriate in the workplace?
Teach them to duck quickly and be adept at looking for work then, as an innocent remark can, as your son has already learned, create an unreasonable reaction. I was almost fired for an equally innocent remark. PC…sheesh. If those stupid people are bigger than you are, or if they control your employment, watch out.
I don’t see how teaching children to pussyfoot around sensitive topics that are sensitive for no good reason is going to do anything other than reinforce what is already an unreasonable taboo. Aren’t we about fighting ignorance here? (as opposed to trying to fit around it)
You don’t think centuries of racism, slavery, oppression, and discrimination of various kinds (some of which continue to this day) is a good reason?
Just because the prevailing political and social ethos now considers racism to be unacceptable isn’t an excuse to pretend that racism is now non-existent or that it no longer affects anyone.
None of it is relevant in any way to what my son did.