At what point do you tell your child/children about the injustices in the world?



By Jamel McFarlane 


Here is a little bit about me. 


Contrary to popular belief I was not born in Jamaica (I do sometimes tell people that I was born Jamaica).


I was born in Lewisham, London. My family and I moved from London to Ashford in Kent in about 2002. 


Back in 2002, Ashford was a predominantly caucasian populated town. If any of our family saw another black person in an area, we would say hello or give the infamous black nod. I believe that this interaction is an act of recognition and respect for their presence. It’s something that happens mostly in places with a lower population of black people - it happens where I live Chichester now. 


Spending most of my childhood growing up in schools that were predominantly white had its challenges. One of the challenges I faced growing up was racism from uneducated people that I crossed as well as being bullied.  


One situation I faced was back when I was in about year 5. Growing up I played rugby for the local club. I only got involved with Rugby because in year 2 I beat the coach’s son in a sports day race. My rugby team were pretty good and we were a close knit bunch and that made us a successful team. One Sunday we won a trophy, and that Thursday we got a write up about it in the local paper. 


Obviously being an excited 9 year old. I went into school the next day and said to my teacher: “Sir, Sir I am in the newspaper.” He replied, “For what? Stealing cars?!”


At the time, I laughed as I thought he was just making an innocent joke, but I did not really understand it. 


When I went home I told my parents about it when sharing how my day was, they discussed it between them and my mum ended up taking the lead to deal with the matter. She spoke to the headteacher about it and the headteacher said if the teacher said the comment, then it was not racist because the teacher’s best man at his wedding was black. 


But even looking back on it now, I am disappointed that a teacher who had taught children for years and who was meant to be inspiring the next generation said something like that. It probably was not until secondary school that I really processed that incident though it did not change the way I viewed my teachers. 


But how do you explain to a nine-year-old that the teacher made a racial offensive comment? 


I wonder if my parents had fully explained the significance of my teacher’s words  to me, if it would it have changed my outlook on life? 


I wonder if my parents had explained to me about the racial connotations of the comment if it would it have made me treat the teacher differently? Would I have fallen into the stereotypical ‘black’ character? 


Maybe I'm glad that my parents never explained it to me because of the effects it could have had. 


I know a lot of your readers might not have children but at what age do you talk to them about this sort of thing?





A black child or a child from any other ethnic minority group unfortunately are likely to experience some form of racism or discrimination growing up. Growing up my parents never really spoke to myself or my sister about racism and the forms it takes. 


The comment my teacher made still resonates with me until this day. Even though I am 26 years old now, I will probably remembered that situation until the day I die. I think I have processed it and dealt with it but I’m not sure. It has, however made me believe that teachers need to be educated about racism and prejudices to ensure no other children experience a situation like that. 


Would I been better off if my parents told me all about racism and the forms it takes?


Recently, I was speaking to a grandad of a mixed race child and we were talking about race and racism etc. And I was asking him at what point will you or the parent of the child tell them about the issues they might face. Being mixed race there is potential challenges from both the white side and the black side of society. He replied to me and said that he would prefer to wait until the child had experience some form of racism. 


Is that too late? 


A poll of 1,000 six to 15-year-olds found that while, overall, about 32% children had heard someone be racist at school, this figure rose to more than half – 52% – among 13-year-olds. 


Where do you start? How do you bring up this conversation? How do you explain prejudice to a child? Does giving them this knowledge do more harm than good?


When I was writing this blog post my mind turn to the quote from Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous I Have A Dream speech. The quote I am thinking of is "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.” 


After reflecting on this quote, it made me think about my own experience.


Can a person of colour grow up not be judged by the colour of their skin?


Let me know what you think. 



Bibliography 


https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/sep/22/one-third-of-children-in-uk-have-heard-racist-comments-at-school 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Operation: Perception and Representation

Image
Written by Moyin Ekundayo  Representation, 'the description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way'. In many ways, representations are like using stereotypes. I will be trying to talk about the representation of black men in society, a bit of a difficult one to do, really. There are millions and millions of black men out there in the world.  That last statement is a perfect place to start. I want to ask you to close your eyes and think, what does a black man sound like? What does he look like? Is he tall? What sport does he like?  See, this topic is very complex, and I can only write and verbalise the stereotyping/distorted representation of a specific group of people. A little self-indulgent but obviously straight black males, I might include some different examples that do not fit this category. However, my goal is to get other people from different demographics to write about their experiences on this similar topic to give a more rounded perspective....
Read more

The Reality of Being Physically Disabled

Image
By Théo Rogier  Disability, by its very nature is broad and expansive. That being stated, the growing sentiment within the community is one of frustration. Our mutual frustration is one of ignorance and the fading acceptance that we have in general society. Even though, we are still physically present.  In general, my intentions in writing this come about from having a need for greater acknowledgement about disability and our presence as disabled people in society. The disabled reality is a struggle. A struggle, in the sense that we are present but we are put aside as an access issue or an inconvenience administratively, physically and from the perspective of government. Even in social settings, the disabled reality is still an issue. Social Setting and Social Interaction  For readers that are able-bodied, let me ask you to think about the times where you have interacted with someone who is physically disabled. In those situations, if you aren’t familiar to the person pri...
Read more

“Early intervention is tragedy prevention”: what losing my best friend at 14 taught me about mental health.

Image
By Ray Munn For many children and teenagers, the most difficult thing they will deal with whilst they are growing up is the death of a loved one. When I was young, I always assumed that, naturally, I would first deal with loss (outside of pets) when my grandparents would pass away. I never thought that at 14, I would deal with one of the most emotionally taxing types of bereavement there is: bereavement caused by suicide.   At 21 years old and seven years later, I’m still coming to terms with the choice my best friend made that day. Bereavement through suicide is a special kind of grief: the questions that remain unanswered scream and demand to be asked, some of the most difficult, complicated, and painful questions someone can ever ask. What happened to make them feel this way? Why didn’t they talk to me? How did they come to this conclusion? How long did they feel like this? When did they decide that this was the solution? This list goes on forever. For many of us, the idea of ta...
Read more