Another kid at my step son’s school called him a Ching Chong, what would you do?

[katrina2017]

@madonna14 Bamboo ceiling and all that.

 

[katrina2017]

@ibelieve2 I think it comes from the bottom but “ incentivized” by the top to sow further division.

By top I’m thinking more in terms of class/status

 

[ouzhenyang]

@kellyc736 The same people who believe that this social hierarchy that they deny exist also want to desperately conserve.

 

[reaqdona]

@romanichal Yup, my Asian mom told me I’m lucky and that racism that others face can be worse than just the racial slurs we get

 

[rutgerscrow74]

@romanichal Asians and whites.

 

[aleshkov]

@romanichal Sorry, but I think the whites win the acceptable racism category hands down.

 

[alexpablo907]

@aleshkov They said "one of the more" so please, let's not make this some sort of weird oppression competition...

 

[rev_mikeh]

@katrina2017 My kid is half Asian and the only person to openly use racial slurs against him is also half Asian. I think so much of this is just kids flailing around trying to find their place in the world and being assholes while they’re doing it. That doesn’t mean it’s ok, but it’s an explanation. It really helped my son to talk through the experience the other kid was having. I didn’t want to gloss over it, but I wanted to create the space for him to say “this is his problem, not mine”

 

[rc32]

@katrina2017

Bruce Lee

I get that in context this is shitty, but like try a little harder to find a less impressive comparator right? Like you could be more offensive to a white Canadian than by calling them Wayne Gretzky.

 

[iluvjesus84]

@rc32 I went to a minor league game in the 90s. Wayne Gretzky’s less-famous brother played for the San Diego Gulls. They called him “The Good One.”

 

[ebb56]

@katrina2017 Fellow Ching Chong here! Yeah, it gets better but doesn’t go away. My last workplace was with psych and we let the angry psych patients give us our nicknames. Mine was Ling Ling. I remember when Fat Bitch told me about nickname thing and her nickname then made more sense.

 

[renba]

@katrina2017 Indian here that grew up with similar sorts of racism from other kids. Got beat up for it too. I learned to fight back and give some folks a few choice slaps but it’s a dangerous road to go down. Luckily it was the locker room fights that nobody tattled about, but that isn’t the answer in today’s world. Worst part is you could document it, show the school, and establish patterns but they won’t do anything about it. But the second your kid fights back it’s as if they’ve basically committed genocide on school grounds.

This is why we kept getting told as kids to just keep your head down and not make a big deal of it, all because the repercussions of standing up for yourself are worse than the bullying. It’s a fucked up world.

Best you could do is at least teach him how to deal with it in the moment and if need be know how to knuckle up if it gets really bad.

 

[fre]

@katrina2017 I think he’s asking for help in how to help his kid process it. He said step kid so I assume white father who’s never had to deal with racism himself

 

[cardery01]

@thecabinetbarn Just be there for your kid. It's unfortunate he's getting introduced to racism at such a young age.

 

[prarierose91]

@cardery01 You know thats 100% from the kids parents.

 

[romanichal]

@prarierose91 In this day and age, it's just as likely to be casual racism they learned on youtube or on voice chat for video games.

 

[ernie7]

@romanichal I agree. But I also think the idea of thinking it's acceptable to repeat this stuff starts in the home a lot of times. It's not enough for parents to just not make racist comments at home. Kids have to be taught why it's wrong.

 

[ency]

@prarierose91 Eh. I remember being that age and repeating a horrible cringy offensive to Asians joke that I thought was hysterical. My parents were horrified.

Kids are just good at being dumb.

 

[godslove01]

@thecabinetbarn I don’t know how to advise on how you should react to it but being Asian American myself I’ve always educated my girls on what to look out for and to react strongly against it. Speaking back to that person and notifying an adult and myself. I’ve also taken it further by talking about racism everywhere - other countries, in our own communities (Asians being racist against others), in other parts of our country, Irish and Italian racism during mass immigration from Europe, etc etc. It’s always been something I can’t fix but I want to make sure my kids are as ready as they can be. It will still hurt and shock them but I hope after that they can lean on lessons and have someone to talk to

 

[iaoc368]

@godslove01 I found myself steering into it a lot as a mixed race kid. It was easier to make jokes about being “half rice, half potatoes” than it was to try to fight it. It would be nice if kids didn’t have to make that choice