Toddlers may already be racists, nurseries told

[Beowulf]

More fake employment for diversity consultants. It's never too early to begin the indoctrination process.

From http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/07/ntoddle07.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/07/ixhome.html

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Toddlers may already be racists, nurseries told
By Julie Henry, Education Correspondent
(Filed: 07/05/2006)

They may still be in nappies and playing with sand and building blocks but many toddlers are already racists, nurseries have been warned.

To stop prejudice from developing while children are still three years old, staff need to ensure that different racial groups "play together right from day one", according to Herman Ouseley, the former chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality.
?
Nursery staff should "discourage separate play" and "help children to unlearn any racist attitudes and behaviour they may have already learnt", said Lord Ouseley.

"It is important to consider whether patterns of play are consistently based on racial or cultural grounds," he writes in the latest issue of the journal Race Equality Teaching.

...

Margaret Morrissey, the spokesman for the National Confederation of Parent Teachers Associations, said, however, that children did not generally notice colour until at least the age of six and that "artificial" attempts to force the issue could be detrimental.

"In all the time I have been involved in nursery education, since about 1975, I have never seen children segregating to play," she said.

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[El]

I remember being four years old or so (maybe three), in nursery school, and having other kids definitely noticing that one kid was a different race than either all of the rest of us or most of the rest of us.  Either I was surrounded by precocious kids, I'm remembering wrong, or the age of six rule is wishful thinking.

[Callaway]

My daughter did not notice differences until she was seven or eight, but once she noticed the differences she pointed them out in public, loudly and inappropriately.  She would say things like, "That woman's fat!  Her tummy is bigger than anyone else's at school!" or "That man's black!  A long time ago he wouldn't be able to eat at this restaurant, would he?" or " That lady has white hair!  She's old!  Is she a grandma?

[BeeBee]

My copy of Webster defines racist as "holding a belief that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race."

Children, even very young ones, notice race.? That is not to say they are racist.

My cousin (white) says her son (asian-foriegn adoption) made a huge fuss about leaving a particular playground one day when he was three.? It turned out that in that park, on that particular day, the majority of the children where of Asian decent...an unusual occurance.? Jim noticed and didn't want to leave.? Being in the majority was a new experience for him...

My son was four or five when he asked why Jim had eye skin folds and no one else in the family did.? Is that noticing race or simply noticing a physical feature?

I don't know.

BeeBee

[Peter]

The human brain is a superb organ for finding patterns and categorising things.  Black, white, round, square, dangerous, safe, good, bad; kids are wired to pigeonhole things from the word go, and also, most animals seem to have a pretty well tuned group immune response where they'll reject something that doesn't fit into the pride/herd/society/colony.  It would be odd if human children lacked this.  Animals often respond pretty well to aclimitisation though, where dogs and goats will accept each other as family if they're brought up together, and slaved ants will identify their slavers as thier own colony, so it's not an insoluble problem. 

[Beowulf]

The human brain is a superb organ for finding patterns and categorising things.? Black, white, round, square, dangerous, safe, good, bad; kids are wired to pigeonhole things from the word go, and also, most animals seem to have a pretty well tuned group immune response where they'll reject something that doesn't fit into the pride/herd/society/colony.? It would be odd if human children lacked this.? Animals often respond pretty well to aclimitisation though, where dogs and goats will accept each other as family if they're brought up together, and slaved ants will identify their slavers as thier own colony, so it's not an insoluble problem.?

So maybe the best solution is to forcibly remove all children from their parents and send them to live with foster parents from a different ethnic group.

[Peter]

No, then the kids will just identify with their foster parent's ethnic group and be racist towards other groups, including the group they originated from; like slave ants that attack the same colony they were stolen from as pupae.

[El]

No, then the kids will just identify with their foster parent's ethnic group and be racist towards other groups, including the group they originated from; like slave ants that attack the same colony they were stolen from as pupae.

Have you seen the Chapelle Show skit that was like that, with the blind African American white supremacist?  I don't like the show very much from what i've seen but many of my friends worship it.

[Peter]

No, then the kids will just identify with their foster parent's ethnic group and be racist towards other groups, including the group they originated from; like slave ants that attack the same colony they were stolen from as pupae.

Have you seen the Chapelle Show skit that was like that, with the blind African American white supremacist?  I don't like the show very much from what i've seen but many of my friends worship it.

Nope, never seen it. 

[El]

Nope, never seen it.?

http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/chappelles_show/videos/season_1/index.jhtml

First link.

[Peter]

Nope, never seen it. 

http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/chappelles_show/videos/season_1/index.jhtml

First link.

Thanks.  How can you not like that stuff?  It's great.   

[purposefulinsanity]

 I have seen kids as young as 3 or 4 using racist terms and occasionally avoiding playing with children of a different race, but I its hardly surprising when you consider what their parents are teaching them.  I don't think you can say that its true racism though- they don't understand it, they're simply repeating what they've heard or behaving in a way they are taught.  I think that nuture plays a bigger part than nature in the development of racist attitudes.

[Scrapheap]

bump!