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Of course my daughter yelled a racial slur

Tom Riker said:
Ghostavo Fring said:
The Mystery Man said:
Unless his daughter is hanging out among black rappers who are dropping the N word then this isn't particularly relevant.
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No kidding. There are plenty of other words you can tell a 4-year-old not to say, with no further explanation beyond "because I said so." I certainly wouldn't go down the road of trying to explain race relations to a preschooler.
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Funny you should bring that up. The other day I told her not to do something and played the "because I said so card." Is this genetic? This is one of those things I vowed never to say.
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Nah, you just have to have a feel for what is really age appropriate for your child to understand. I don't think a 4-year-old is going to "get" why some words are okay to say and some words aren't, much less understand the nuances of what words you can say around certain people, or why some people can use words that you aren't allowed to, etc.

I think I was about 9 or 10 when I first encountered the "n-word." I had just moved to a new school, and at recess, one boy used the word to refer to a black classmate. "What did you call me?" she asked, clearly looking agitated, but I didn't know why. So I, um, repeated it for him.

That was a mistake I only made once. :lol:
 
Kreacher said:
^ Unfortunately it's not just the older generation. I hear some scarily racist stuff from young people in my neighborhood.
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Everyone in my immediate family and their circle of friends is racist at some level, from the youngest to the oldest. Some of the conversations I've heard them having at get togethers were just horrible. The worst part is that it isn't overt, it's usually a very casual sort of racism that comes as naturally as breathing. At least they only use the slurs in private company.
 
6079SmithW said:
Kreacher said:
^ Unfortunately it's not just the older generation. I hear some scarily racist stuff from young people in my neighborhood.
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Everyone in my immediate family and their circle of friends is racist at some level, from the youngest to the oldest. Some of the conversations I've heard them having at get togethers were just horrible. The worst part is that it isn't overt, it's usually a very casual sort of racism that comes as naturally as breathing. At least they only use the slurs in private company.
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Oh the bad slurs are used in private, but my grandpa took me to my Dentist appointment last week and was talking about "The Colords."
 
It's unfortunate we don't like to admit it but we do live in a very racist country. Not just a certain group either, across the board.
 
We had a different kind in the UK. It was Asians who were the target here, although it seems to be fading out as younger generations take over and ignore the ignorant ones who went before.
 
My dad was always embarrassing me, because he would say the N-word in public. Over the years he would apologize to me after saying it. To his dying day, he still said, "Your N president" did this or that on the news.

Dad died last February and there are many things about him that I miss... just not that part.
 
My four year old was sitting on the couch with me when something fell of the shelf beside us.

"FUCK!" she said.

After I pulled my jaw off the floor I told her that was a mummy and daddy word and that no one in the house would use it again.

And I think I haven't.
 
My 9 and 13 year old cousins (who love me to pieces) think black people are dirty and smelly. The younger one found out that one of my best friends is black, and she asked me "how can you stand the smell?!" and she was totally honest about it. To her, it was unimaginable that I would have a black person as a friend. You should have seen their faces when I told them I once dated a black girl in high school.

I've been working on them slowly, though, introducing them to ideas that are bringing them around to the idea that black people are just like white people, and that only their skin color is different, and skin color doesn't make a person good or bad. It's slow progress, since their father is a racist asshole and reinforces their belief system at home, but the girls like me, and they trust me, and I'm not going to steer them wrong.
 
From reading this thread I must live on a different planet than some of you. I cannot even imagine hearing stuff like Rainbow Dash says above.
 
Oh man. When I was little my grandma taught me the racist version of eenie meenie miney mo and I promptly went home and dropped the N-word in front of my mother and she flipped out. I'm still kind of embarrassed, but I just thought it meant a sort of ridiculous person, not black people explicitly. I didn't know it was wrong.

The weird thing is, my grandmother isn't particularly racist. She voted for Obama and is a pretty liberal person, even supporting gay marriage in a roundabout way. She's just...old fashioned sometimes. And she grew up in a really insular Mennonite community which probably doesn't help.
 
teacock said:
From reading this thread I must live on a different planet than some of you. I cannot even imagine hearing stuff like Rainbow Dash says above.
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Casual racism is very, very common in the rural Midwest.

My kids live in a town in Indiana that is--and I am not exaggerating--over 98% white. It's easy to be a racist ass in a place where the targets of your racism don't even exist, you know?
 
Candlefright said:
My four year old was sitting on the couch with me when something fell of the shelf beside us.

"FUCK!" she said.

After I pulled my jaw off the floor I told her that was a mummy and daddy word and that no one in the house would use it again.

And I think I haven't.
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Hubby and I were riding with a friend, his wife, and angelic little girl, maybe about 3yo, out for dinner. Friend was driving when some little traffic issue happened.

"Shit, man!" he said

"Shit, man!" this tiny little voice quietly echoed.

Our Friend was beside himself, "I've ruined my baby girl!"

Hubby and I just did our best not to break out laughing.
 
teacock said:
From reading this thread I must live on a different planet than some of you. I cannot even imagine hearing stuff like Rainbow Dash says above.
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I feel the same way. I must be really lucky with where I live or who my friends and family are or something, because I don't encounter overt racism very often at all. I can think of a few comments here and there that were questionable, but I honestly can't believe some of the things I've read in this thread! I do live in a very diverse city, and my place of employment is pretty diverse as well.
 
kolibri said:
Oh man. When I was little my grandma taught me the racist version of eenie meenie miney mo and I promptly went home and dropped the N-word in front of my mother and she flipped out. I'm still kind of embarrassed, but I just thought it meant a sort of ridiculous person, not black people explicitly. I didn't know it was wrong.

The weird thing is, my grandmother isn't particularly racist. She voted for Obama and is a pretty liberal person, even supporting gay marriage in a roundabout way. She's just...old fashioned sometimes. And she grew up in a really insular Mennonite community which probably doesn't help.
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It's just so casual. Growing up my grandpa tried to justify it. He told me once by black friend "wasn't a nigger, he's a colored boy."
 
Not easy to be a child, looking up to adults that you love, believing they must know everything... and all along you are being fed ignorance and negativity. Sometimes you wonder how the gift of children was ever deserved.
 
I don't think it gets better. A little while ago two teenage girls went riding by on bicycles as I was digging wild violets out of my lawn and one hollered to the other "Are you talking about your VAGINA?!" That was repeated about a half block away as they rode past the hospital. The conversation probably started in McDonalds, when they were four.
 
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