I think it would take a remarkable insight into both your son’s mind and into the minds of those who heard his comment to conclude that it is not relevant in any way.
If your son is white and the other kid is not and you live in a white-dominated society where skin-colour-based racism has played an important part in the culture, then it’s automatically relevant.
I must agree with this - after an eternity of racially-based oppression, suspicion and abuse, what sense does it make to counter this with utter silence, and foster denial of superficial human differences?
Shouldn’t we teach our kids frankness, openness and above all, not to be little bastards?
As far as I’m concerned, “You mustn’t mention the colour of Jim’s skin”, to a nine-year-old is pretty nearly equivalent to “Jim has different-coloured skin, and that’s a bad thing”.
Perhaps that’s not the best way to put it then.
But you think it’s a better lesson that anyone who is sensitive to having his skin colour pointed out is stupid?
Actually, I never told my son the other boy was stupid and that would probably be a bad idea - and that was a bit of hyperbole. I told him that there was nothing wrong with what he said, but it would have been wrong if he’d said the other boy was bad in some way because of the colour of his skin, or if he’d made assumptions about the boy based on the colour of his skin.
I appreciate that pragmatism might sometimes dictate that we zip our mouths lest a perfectly innocent comment be misunderstood, but once the perfectly innocent comment is out there, I absolutely will not accept it being branded as prejudice or bigotry, and catching this all up into a general plan of silence on certain topics, to me, is way too close to racial prejudice anyway.
If I can tell a white person that I think their porcelain complexion is attractive or interesting, but must deliberately refrain from making equivalent comments about others on the basis of their race, isn’t that, you know, racism?
In what context did the colour of his skin get mentioned? We need to know this.
As far as I can tell (from both sides), it was just casual conversation. My son tends to be quite chatty in that way - for example, if he’s watching someone change a tyre, he’ll intersperse his questions with remarks such as “when you turn that thing, it lifts the car up”, “the spare wheel is very heavy”, “that thing undoes the bolts, doesn’t it?” - he’s not by any means unique in this regard though - blurting out random observations and statements of the obvious just seems to be a thing that kids of his age do to make conversation.
No, actually, not if there’s a good reason to believe that people based on their race are likely to not welcome such an observation. A person who has been hurt by societal racism is not being racist by being sensitive to it.
I don’t know Mangetout. I’m kind of on your side on this one, but then again, how does one casually work skin colour into a conversation like this?
“Hi, I see you’re playing football. May I play?”
“No. Sorry, we have enough players.”
“OK. Your skin is browner than mine.”
I have a hard time accepting that it was as innocent as you believe. Or maybe it was intended to be innocent, but was completely inappropriate for casual conversation.
I see nothing wrong with describing people using actual facts. There was an incident in Ottawa last year where some ethic group of kids attacked some other group of kids and the community was all up in arms because the police described the attackers as a “group of Asians,” or something to that affect. Umm, since when is it inappropriate to describe people by identifiable attributes that might help in solving the case?
Anyway, I feel for your son, but again, it might not have been interpreted as totally innocent by the brown-skinned kid.
Luckily for us you seem to be handily placed to pontificate on this matter on everyone’s behalf! Please acsenray tell us more, do. :rolleyes:
No, they’re not being racist by being sensitive to remarks about their skin colour. But they could be judgemental if they interpret innocent remarks as racist abuse. And if they take it upon themselves to physically assault people on the basis of that judgement, they need to take the consequences of their mistakes. Which in this case, needn’t be any more than apologising and admitting their error. It’s not a lot to ask.
Yeah, that’s fair. Did I say I know what anyone’s thinking? All I’m pointing out is that there are good reasons for people to react unpleasantly to allegedly innocent comments.
Using the toilet is a simple fact of life, isn’t it? Yet we learn not to describe our bowel movements in detail in most societal situations. How is that radically different from refraining from needlessly drawing attention to other people’s physical characteristics? Do you walk around your workplace commenting on people’s skin colour, attractiveness, fitness, size, dress randomly for no reason?
I don’t recall concluding that the assailant was in the right. My only point is that there are plausible and justifiable reasons for negative reactions to needlessly commenting on someone’s skin colour.
I have no problem at all believing a kid could just randomly work this comment into a conversation and have it be totally innocent.
I don’t like kids. I don’t spend much time around kids. So, I don’t have much experience with them.
That being said, I can not remember ever meeting a kid between the ages of 3 and 12 who did NOT make a statement like that to me, completely out of the blue.
For instance, yesterday I was having a normal conversation with my niece (she’s almost 4). Out of nowhere, she said, “you’re much bigger than I am.” I restrained myself from saying “duh” and the conversation continued.
My nephew told me (when he was 5) that I was fat (thanks you little shit). He told me again, last week, that I am much bigger than his mommy (she is 5’3" and weighs less than 100lbs). At least he’s gotten more tactful in the last 4 years.
The girls I used to babysit (ages 8 and 10), frequently commented on my skin color (very pale), my eye color (blue), my hair color (coppery), my boobs (big), my stomach (big but not as big as it is now), my height (short). These comments always came from nowhere and had no relevance in the actual conversation. The girls noticed these things about me because I was unusual to them. Their friends were mostly Jewish, mostly brunette, mostly brown-eyed, mostly olive skinned. The girls saw the differences in me and pointed them out. They were pointing out facts. They were not trying to hurt me by telling me that I was fat and pale and that I had a strange hair color. They were just being kids and making observations. I could have taken offense and told them it was impolite to point out things like that. Instead, I took the opportunity to teach them a little about genetics. We made up little charts with the known traits of all our living family members. They enjoyed the exercise. By expanding on their families and talking to their parents, they were actually able to get rid of their own stereotypical belief that all Jews had brown hair and eyes (they acutally had 1 blond and 1 redhead in their family).
Just recently at my new job, my sister was talking to two coworkers on third shift. She told the supervisor that I would be coming to third shift in a few weeks but was training on first. The supervisor had met quite a few new female employees recently and asked which one I was. The mechanic described me as, the short girl with long red hair and glasses. Oh, she’s also bigger than Mary but in all the right ways. If anything, I think my twig sister should have taken offense to that statement. I thought it was funny.
Saying, the white girl wouldn’t have made much of a point since most of the people on first shift are white. He could have described me as the girl who’s not a hick and has all her teeth. That would have been much more descriptive but probably never occured to him. 
Anyway, kids learn by making observations and by receiving feedback on those observations. I used to make that type of observation when I was a kid but since I was shy, I usually made them to my mother only. She would then elaborate on my observations. When I told her that her coworker, Anna, had a funny accent, she explained that Anna was from Puerto Rico and grew up speaking Spanish. We then read a little about PR so I would understand what and where PR was.
The only time I got in trouble for making an observation was the only time I made it to the observee’s face. I had been playing with the girl’s hair and when I stopped, she asked why. I said that her hair was making my hands greasy. I got grounded. It’s been almost 20 years since that happened and I’m still irritated. All the adults who heard insisted that I was making fun of the fact that she was black. Until they mentioned it, I never even noticed her color. All I knew was that she had unusual hair and it was fun to play with. Then I noticed that her hair was greasy.
You know what? Her hair was greasy. And I don’t think it had anything to do with her race. However, I learned that people do not like it when you point out that their hair is greasy. I have never said it to someone’s face again so I learned my lesson. But it was not a racially motivated statement. People need to stop being so damn sensitive all the time. Of course, the greasy hair incident happened around 1988 so it’s not like this PC bullshit is a new thing.
I’m with you on this. Kids notice things and make comments about things. Mostly in terms of how people are different from them, or situations/places are different from the situations/places they’re most familiar with. I believe it’s how they learn to relate to themselves as an integral part of the world around them. It’s their way of finding their own place in the scheme of things.
I don’t know, please tell me how to think about race issues. More urgently, could you please tell the 9 year old son of Mangetout how he should behave and think. I’m on tenterhooks here.
I don’t know why you’re being so hostile and insulting. I haven’t once criticized either Mangetout or his son; neither have I expressed approval for the kid who hit him. I haven’t told you or anyone else “how to think about race issues.”
Mangetout’s OP was “Casually making mention of the colour of a person’s skin is not a racist attack” and my point is little more than – it doesn’t matter what your innocent intentions are, in a society with a history like ours there are certain topics that are likely to elicit hostile reactions and such reactions are often grounded in perfectly reasonable assumptions when you look at it from the other person’s point of view. And I said that it seems to me that it is worth it for a child, at some point in his or her young life, to be clued in.
Show me how any of that is as obnoxious as your two comments to me.
Post # 45, you know the one that begins
could you be any more patronising?
Why yes, in post #48, paragraph two
and let us not mention your penetrating insight that is post #56 which begins
Quite.
Just wanted to return to this for a moment. I think we can say with reasonable certainty that the boy that hit my son has not experienced centuries of racism, slavery, etc. I mean, I see your point about context and all, but I think you may be over-egging your pudding here.
I agree with you in the vast majority of cases. But I’m reminded of an incident in college where a white woman complained about a group of black women disturbing her with all sort of screaming noises from down in the public courtyard or whatever. To her it sounded like screeching but I knew it was the calls back and forth of sorority members and to me it would be something I identified with and thought was fun. So depending on the context, a difference in race might mean a difference in perception of what is acceptable, or “normal” behavior. Then again, I’m white and it’s just chance that I knew anything about it. Another time a friend of mine asked me about what he thought might be a brand on a basketball player’s arm. I asked, “Is he black?” because that made the probability quite a bit higher that it was an Omega brand. “Did it look anything like an omega?” was the next question, but I did ask about his race to narrow down the possibilities.
I also tend to always include the person’s race when describing them, just to make it fair across the board.
Just for clarification: Are we also to stop mentioning eye colour? Cos you know, most non-whites have brown eyes and if we mention brown eyes that could be construed as offensive.