Unfair or discrimination or is she just too sensitive?

[blackfoot]

Right heres the story.

Someone i know has a son who attends a local junior school, this child has mild special needs and is very sensitive to personal attacks and cannot express his emotions well.

 

Not long ago there was an incident in school where a child of ethnic minority picked on this child because of his disability, the child was deeply upset and made a remark about the colour of this kids skin. it went along the lines of ..

 

"well you're black and i am white"

 

My friend received a telephone call from school asking her to go in as a very serious incident had taken place. Please can i point out that my mates son has ungergone servere bullying at this school for the past two years and no support has been offered.

 

My mate went over to school and was deeply shocked to learn that her child had said something so hostile as he is not a racist child and racism of any form is just not tolerated in the household. she questioned the events leading up to the incident and was dismayed to find that the child of ethnic origin had taunted her child about his disability but what happened next shocked her beyond belief and to be honest it got my thinking too.

 

The teacher stated that because a racist term had been used her son would be given a severe behaviour card which she fully accepted and agreed with, however, when she asked if the other child would be treated in the same manor for being discrimating about a disability she was told that they had nothing in place against "those kind of remarks" and that the child in question had been spoken too and that was all.

 

She questioned her son as to why he had said that and he said he was merely stating a fact that he was white and the other child was black and nothing could be done about it the same as nothing could be done about his disabilty, he said he was not being racist at all but trying to point out that sometimes people are born that way and cannot chnge what it.

 

She is very upset as to why one form of discrimination appears to be ok but the other is not.

 

All this has done is breed racism in this case because my mates son now thinks that because the other child was black he got away with being discriminating towards him and no amount of trying to tell him otherwise has worked and to be fair i can see his point.

Do you feel my mate is being over sensitive in the matter?

[natjack]

No, I don't think she is. But she might as well get used to it, because it's not going to change. The discrimination seems to only go one way these days.

 

The school's at fault anyway for making a big thing about it. With kids, you might as well ignore stuff like this, they don't mean anything by it, and the next day,left alone they'd be fine with one another. Just going on my own experience of being a kid once

 

ETA: my mate's just pointed out that the school discriminated against the other child by not treating them equally. So the mum should put in an official complaint to the Chair of Governors and also to the LEA. This can be done by email.

[mj.scuba]

Not being oversensitive imo. I too know people this sort of thing has happened to, to a disabled kid who when mocked becuase she was different, retaliated in the only way kids know how, to point out some difference the other kid may have which just happened to be skin colour (the most obvious just like her disability was obvious), no derogatory words though unlike the ones she suffered.

 

I think the school could have certainly sorted it out informally.

[Grandad.Malky]

My sympathy goes out to you but don’t blame the school it’s the PC brigade that have taken over from common sense, when my so was at school a girl said he touched her “inappropriately” … that was it its out of their hands and a report was sent to social services nothing ever came of it but one as to ask what happened to that report?

[*Wallace*]

Ahhh dontcha just love modern Britain.

[hard2miss]

Well a school is the ideal place to educate someone you would think and the comment made just sounds like an ill founded observation so if thats the case and no malice was intended then the school school address the thought process behind the question.

 

Now one of the biggest underlying problems with this incident and schools in general is that if you dare to mention color or indifference its automatically seen negatively and everyone want to jump on the 'it must be racist' band wagon.

 

Where as instead of contemplating why the child should think that there be a difference of treatment because of color, should educate this child and put any misconceptions right, instead of finger pointing and thinking that they have done their bit.

If I was a head I would first of all look at why this child thinks like this, correct him, look to see if this is endemic to other pupils, ask questions why its the case and if its a failing of the school or a bigger conception in society in general and again address that problem.

 

Just highlighting that this kid is wrong and pointing a finger is like pointing at someone and saying your fat or your black. Making a statement of fact without doing anything to address it is pointless and schools where education is the whole point should do more in situations like this.

[Waldo]

Such anti-discrimination laws, only ever serve to fan the flames of racial tension. You can't FORCE people to love and care for each other and to acknowledge each others' humanity; by trying to force that, that you are actually helping to create the opposite.

[boyfriday]

It sounds like its the system that's at fault rather than a desire to not take seriously abuse of the disabled. It sounds like both kids were spoken to? So the black one wasn't exactly patted on the back. That should have been the end of it for both chldren.

 

I dont know what a 'severe behaviour card', so cant comment on its application, but presumably there are certain reasons for using it, and this fell outside those. If it materially affects a child's education then clearly it's use should be even handed, if it's just a piece of paper that makes the school look clever I wouldn't worry too much about it tbh.

[Waldo]

Well a school is the ideal place to educate someone you would think and the comment made just sounds like an ill founded observation so if thats the case and no malice was intended then the school school address the thought process behind the question.

 

Now one of the biggest underlying problems with this incident and schools in general is that if you dare to mention color or indifference its automatically seen negatively and everyone want to jump on the 'it must be racist' band wagon.

 

Where as instead of contemplating why the child should think that there be a difference of treatment because of color, should educate this child and put any misconceptions right, instead of finger pointing and thinking that they have done their bit.

If I was a head I would first of all look at why this child thinks like this, correct him, look to see if this is endemic to other pupils, ask questions why its the case and if its a failing of the school or a bigger conception in society in general and again address that problem.

 

Just highlighting that this kid is wrong and pointing a finger is like pointing at someone and saying your fat or your black. Making a statement of fact without doing anything to address it is pointless and schools where education is the whole point should do more in situations like this.

 

Schools and other such large institutions in general, don't care about human beings; they care about following procedure and laws.

[hard2miss]

Such anti-discrimination laws, only ever serve to fan the flames of racial tension. You can't FORCE people to love and care for each other and to acknowledge each others' humanity; by trying to force that, that you are actually helping to create the opposite.

You are totally right and its a belief that that is why multiculturalism won't work. The more you force and pressure an ideal on someone them more of a backlash to that ideal you will get.