The Happy Homemaker

The BBC reports that toddlers who say “yuk” to spicy curries or say that they “stink” should be flagged as having racist tendencies and should be educated about racism. That includes children who stare at a black child or a woman in a hijab. Nowhere does it say anything about Muslim children who refuse pork or the Asian who who makes fun of the European nose.

It is natural for children to be a little shocked at seeing people different from themselves or their family. In Korea, the children made fun of me and followed me everywhere saying “miguksalam migulsalam!” I thought it cute and understood their innocence. I didn’t take offense at all and realized that I was probably the first American the child had ever seen up close. They laughed when I spoke English as they never heard another language besides Korean. I did not think they were racist at all.

Everyone knows that I am a bit multicultural. My children have been around other cultures most of their lives. Still, there are times when they do stare at someone who is different. Even though we eat curry once a week, my son still think it stinks and refuses to eat it. They still laugh when they hear Russian even though they heard it their entire lives. Jon chooses to be called Jon over Salim because Salim is different. It doesn’t matter if I tell him to be proud to be different. At the age of four he doesn’t understand ethnic pride and crap like that. He just wants to be like his other peers. As he grows older and sees himself more as an individual, he might want to be called Salim.

I want my children to think and express themselves freely. So the next time my kid says mechanic, who is Afghani, stinks, say, “yes, he stinks” and will not put race into the equation at all. My child does not see “Afghani” or “oppressed” because he has never oppressed anyone. He just sees a very stinky man. If a redneck (my ethnic group heh heh) came around him stinking like a dirty diaper he would say that man stunk too! I don’t get offended if after I eat kim chi people say I stink. I know it! If someone has black skin they do, so what? The black child thinks the other child is white. That is a fact. They don’t know about slavery and about Jim Crow at two. Racism is not genetic. Racism is a system of belief that is taught. To believe that you are a master race and are genetically superior takes a lot of thought, even if it is misguided. (kind of like Global Warming or Marxism is misguided)

Even if a child makes racist comments he doesn’t understand exactly what that means. I put my foot in my mouth a few times. My best friends were black as a child (remember Tasha?), but I still said stupid things from time to time. My black friends said weird things about white people too. We both learned and moved on. Sometimes we cried, but we moved on. It wasn’t until my black friends learned that they were oppressed because of the white man that they no longer were my friends. Then they were “black” not Tasha and I was the “white girl” not Amber. That hurt more than any word I could have said wrong. Hearing my friend Tasha laugh at me and call me “Look at that white girl!” was far more racist than quoting my grandfather saying the “n” word or confessing that my ancestors were slave owners. My mother had a similar experience growing up with her friends. (and she grew up in the South . . . in the 1960s!!) That is racism, not the accident of saying the wrong word or thinking an Indian is stinky. Tasha was embarrassed to be my friend because I was white. The same goes for those white pride people. I bet if you look in their background, as children they did not care if someone was black and probably had black friends. They were taught white superiority. Shoot, I just recently read white racist theory a few months ago. I thought it garbage by the way! Afrocentrism is equally garbage. (and actually comes from the same source!!)

That is why my kids will never go to daycare. I will live off of ramen noodles if I have to! Marxism, die please!!