My son is mixed race. No one would be able to tell that he isn’t Puerto Rican in full unless they saw me. The Mexican children in our area won’t really play with him because he is mixed. If they never saw me, but saw my son with his father all the time, they wouldn’t be that way.
Just the other day he was shunned by children in the neighborhood. He was being called black instead of by his name. They didn’t want him to play with them. The black children pushed him away from the game because the other kids didn’t want to play with him. One of the black children will play with my son any other time, but not that day with that group of children.
My son was heartbroken and I was beyond livid. His own good friend hurt him deeply by not wanting him to play. His cousin had to tell him to stop being ignorant and let my son play. The other black boy got told by me to leave him alone.
The Mexican children, though, got away with saying what they said. They didn’t get outright ignorant with my son, but I heard what they said. They never called him or the other boys by name, only called them black. My son, they called black, because I am “black”. They wouldn’t even talk to him. He was in their faces and they just completely ignored him like he was wind blowing past…they do it every time. My son always stands up for himself, but they still act like he never was even standing there.
I saw red that day. I am so tired of my son being discriminated against for being mixed. Never did I imagine that he would deal with these issues…especially from another minority. That was MY life, I didn’t want it to be his.
Tags: prejudice, teaching+prejudice, discrimination, interracial+children
