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Can kids be racist?

Kestra said:
Yeah, kids pick up on cues from the people around them. Or just don't like differences.

I remember in third grade, a girl had just moved into town and was in my class. One of the first things she said to me was "I've never seen a black person before." I told her I was brown. :lol: We ended up becoming best friends.

Has anyone ever known a pet to be racist? I swear one of my sister's dogs is.
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My Miss Chicken is 'racist' but only to other cats not to people. She only like other cats if they are all black like herself.
 
Miss Chicken said:
I think it is something that has to be taught.

Once I was looking at a movie when my son woke up and came quietly came in the loungeroom. I didn't realise he was there at first and he ended up watching a scene where black people were attacked on one of the freedom buses. The scene upset my son quite a nit so I turned the Tv off and talked to him about it. After I explained a little about racism I asked him if he knew any black people. At first he said no, but than he thought some more and asked me if our next door neighbour, Marty was black. I said yes, Marty, was. My son said "I didn't know that".

Up to that point my son was oblivious to skin colour and I think most young children are.
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I remember reading a letter to a magazine where a woman said she was at a party and there was a little girl who had got separated from her mother, one of the girl's friends saw the letter-writer and asked if she was the girl's mother, to which the girl replied that no, her mother was wearing a red dress.

Both the girls were white and the woman was black.
 
Da'an said:
I remember reading a letter to a magazine where a woman said she was at a party and there was a little girl who had got separated from her mother, one of the girl's friends saw the letter-writer and asked if she was the girl's mother, to which the girl replied that no, her mother was wearing a red dress.

Both the girls were white and the woman was black.
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That's fantastic. :bolian:
 
There has to be a point where a child is responsible for his or her actions and statements. Certainly it's true that the parents are often the source of discrimination, but I've seen 16 year-olds with fairly tolerant parents express extremely intolerant attitudes towards homosexuals and minorities, much to the parent's dismay. Sometimes you have to develop tolerance.
 
Yes they can. I am white/black and got it from both races in high school and even college. The whites would call me "half breed" and the blacks would call me "oreo" and neither group would have anything to do with me like I was some kind of disease.
 
Danoz said:
There has to be a point where a child is responsible for his or her actions and statements. Certainly it's true that the parents are often the source of discrimination, but I've seen 16 year-olds with fairly tolerant parents express extremely intolerant attitudes towards homosexuals and minorities, much to the parent's dismay. Sometimes you have to develop tolerance.
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My eldest son is like that. He once announced that the "Asians were comimg to Australia and stealing jobs from people like him". Now I know my son wouldn't work in an iron lung and that the only person stopping him from getting a job is himself.

He also hates gays. We had a big argument once because he was trying to pressure me to stay away from one of my friends because that friend was gay.

He also says he dislikes my best friend because he hates the way she wears her sunglasses.
 
Miss Chicken said:
My eldest son is like that. He once announced that the "Asians were comimg to Australia and stealing jobs from people like him". Now I know my son wouldn't work in an iron lung and that the only person stopping him from getting a job is himself.

He also hates gays. We had a big argument once because he was trying to pressure me to stay away from one of my friends because that friend was gay.

He also says he dislikes my best friend because he hates the way she wears her sunglasses.
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I know he's your son and all, but... he sounds like a bit of a cock. Any reason why he's like that?

I'm kinda glad my daughter has positive exposure to everything. A gay uncle and grandfather, bisexual mother and quite a diverse surrounding. If she turns out to have any racial or sexual prejudice I will have fucked up somehow...

...or I'll blame my brother in law who's humour comes only from South PArk.
 
Of course it does. Either by parents or by the community/peers around a child.

I remember how one day when I picked up my son from school my neighbour's daughter, Kelly, was walking along with us. Another little girl shouted out to Kelly "Is it true that your mother is a dirty, black abo?". That girl learnt the word "abo" from somewhere.

(In fact, Kelly's mother is aboriginal at all. Her mother isthe daughter of an black American sailor and an white Australian woman. Kelly herself is part-aboriginal because her father is. )

I know he's your son and all, but... he sounds like a bit of a cock. Any reason why he's like that?
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Maybe he takes after my mother who is quite racist. At times I have been very embarrassed by both of their attitudes. Luckily neither of my other two son take are like it.

I remember that when I was a child I was forbidden to play with one girl by my mother because "She was a Mansell". I didn't know whybeing a Mansell was wrong and it was a few more years before I learnt that the Mansells was a common surname among the Tasmanian Aboriginal community (along with Maynard and Burgess and a couple of other surnames). I had no idea that the girl concerned was 'black'. To me she just seemed like any other child because I was totally "colour-blind" as a child (at least I was until I became a teenager).
 
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South Pacific Lyrics
You've Got to be Carefully Taught Lyrics

[FONT=arial]Send "Youve Got to be Carefully Taught" Ringtone to y[/FONT]You've got to be taught
To hate and fear
You've got to be taught
From year to Year
It's got to be drummed
in your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught

You've got to be taught
To be Afraid
Of people whose eyes
are oddly made
And people whose skin
Is a different shade
You've got to be carefully taught

You've got to be taught
Before it's too late
Before you are 6 or 7 or 8
To hate all the people
your relatives hate
You've got to be carefully taught.


'nuf said


[FONT=arial]Send "Youve Got to be Carefully Taught" Ringtone to your Ce[/FONT]
 
It occurs to me that I might have a bit more insight into this subject than a lot of posters on the board. I was born and raised in a suburb where the population is at least 98% Caucasian. At my elementary school, there were no Hispanics, no African-Americans, no other South Asians besides my sister and I. We stood out.

When a kid is different, the reactions can vary quite a bit. Some are curious, some are mean, some are ignorant. I'm not sure much of it could be classified as racist behavior at that age. I was simply different to them in so many ways that they didn't know quite what to make of me.

As I grew older, I learned more and more how to fit in. How to be more "white." By the time I got to high school sure, there were a few kids that were racist. But the vast majority of people seemed to have forgotten that I was different. I felt like I was leading two separate lives; one life was at home and was rich in my Indian culture, and the other was out in public, around friends or strangers.

In high school, people were sometimes shocked if I told them I didn't celebrate Christmas. It's as if they had just never considered the fact that I might not. When I invited some of my close friends over to a party my parents were having, it was like stepping into a different world for them. They said they always knew I was Indian, but hadn't really realized what that meant. To see me in Indian clothes, around Indian people, in a house that had Indian decorations, was quite shocking to them.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here. I think for the most part, if a child is displaying outright racist behaviour complete with slurs, it's probably something they have learned from a parent. Otherwise, it's often just curiosity and ignorance about someone who is visibly different from them.
 
Miss Chicken, who does your son hang around with in his free time? Who is his bad influence?

Australia, like Japan or Korea, seems to be an ostensibly pleasant country, but it has a dark, dark underbelly...
 
The son concerned is 32 years old and hasn't lived with me, at least not for any length of time, for more than 10 years, in fact he lives about 200 kms from me, so I have no idea who he hangs around with.

I was shocked when he started to voice racist beliefs in front of me about 6 or 7 years ago.
 
sidious618 said:
I remember when my sister was younger she got British confused with Jewish.
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Maybe Mel Gibson has a similar problem, and that's why he made "The Patriot"

She was watching a kids history show on the revolutionary war and started saying, "The Jewish are coming! The Jewish are coming!"
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Reminds me of a line from PERMANENT MIDNIGHT, "I'm being fucked by a Jew!"

Also, Kids are horrible little monsters and invented racism.
 
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