Follow up
It is getting late, so I am going to respond to the previous post’s comments with some stuff I wrote to an online friend privately via email. I hope she won’t mind.
After I wrote the post, I gave the situation some more thought. I think what is going on is that this kid is a weird kid. On the first day of school, he was the kid that made me shake my head and think that Jr. High is going to be miserable for him. His hair looked crazy and his parents had him dressed in very mismatched clothes. And his shorts were (no joke) pulled up almost to his armpits. Just a glance at him and he screamed social outcast.
When M first told me she didn’t like Jason, I didn’t know which kid she was talking about. But then as she went on, I figured it out. As articulate at M is, I don’t think she has the vocabulary or understanding to talk about “weird” kids, so I think she was picking the most obvious features of this kid.
Just to be clear here, I am not condoning the not liking of this kid because he is “weird”, nor am I excusing M’s comments. But I do think it plays a part, especially because there are a) other brown kids, b) other kids with accents, and c) another kid of Indian descent in M’s class, none of whom M dislikes nor is she bothered by those characteristics (except in reference to Jason).
It does bother me that in her lack of vocabulary (or whatever it is) she goes directly to racial characteristics. That just sucks. I think this conversation and the one we had about the situation at the park is how she is going to learn that it isn’t acceptable in this family to dislike people for those reasons. Not that it will necessarily change what she is thinking, but probably she will figure out soon enough that she shouldn’t say it out loud. I don’t know if that is a good or a bad thing.
Thanks for the comments and reading suggestions. I still have more thinking to do on this topic.
November 19th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
We had an incident with B within the first couple of weeks of pre-k this year. Another class has a little boy, “R”, with Down’s, and B told him he looked funny and he didn’t want to be his friend. Luckily, one of the teachers witnessed it, talked to B about it appropriately, now B will go out of his way to play with R every once in awhile. They aren’t best friends, mostly because R doesn’t talk or run well, but they get along. Hopefully, Ben will remember this relationship next time something comes up in a different situation, or maybe the time after that.
I think it is part of growing up, and I think you have a great perspective on it.