Interesting....

It's lovely isn't it, so nice to see.
When I was a TA we had lots of children from different
Cultures as I worked in a primary school and the y all got on well together.
My gd is mixed culture, she loved her primary school but when she went to her secondary school it was very difficult at times. Now she's at 6th form she's back to different cultures again and loving it.

For goodness sake....how many of these posts
have actually come from black people? Black folk might even be able to talk with some authority on the subject, unlike many of the contributors, who appear desperate to be seen as non-racist.

I remember hearing a similar story about a little boy telling his teacher about a class mate who had done something unkind - bullying or something. The teacher asked who the offender was and was told."It's that boy with glasses". "That boy with glasses happened to be the only "coloured" kid in the class.

I was born in 1940 and had never seen a black man until an American serviceman sat behind us on the bus. I knelt up on the seat and asked him, much to my mother's embarrassment, whether he was made of chocolate! He couldn't stop laughing!
I now have a gorgeous daughter in law who is half Indian and half Philipino. She is a gem and we are so lucky to have her in the family

Actually illtellhim I was born in 1945 and went to nursery when I was 3 because my mum was ill. My mum tells how I talked all the time about a boy I was friendly with. When they came to parent's day they realised he was black. He was a last gift from the US army. Apparently I adored him. I don't remember this.

So many different races and nationalities around here you don’t even notice the difference. Most wear western dress (usually jeans) though I did envy a Sikh woman her cool garb during that heat wave.

Lucky girl, your Dgds attitude and friendship is as it should be.

Illtelhim, your assertion that anyone born in the 50s is racist is very insulting. I was born in ‘54 and certainly am not. I and my family have friends of various skin colours and nationalities. A person is defined by their deeds and character not their colour.

Illtellhim - I think many people born in the 1950s were brought up by racist parents, often because most British people never saw or met anyone from another country or ethnicity, but it is rarer for our age group to be racist.
I remember in 1950s London, one of the first black people I ever saw, was a boy of my age walking along the road and was then abused by a white man passing by. My mother told the man off. West Indians I worked with said their parents suffered a lot of abuse in the 1950s.
In my area white British are now a minority and my mixed race DGC asked where are all the black people when we visited another part of the country.

Racism is not built in ! Its learned! I was born in the 1950's in a very poor area of London where all immigrants were thrown together, black, irish, jewish, polish, spanish etc. never once did we see anyone in our community as being different to us. My parents were Irish and our neighbours were West Indian. It was the then middle classes who decided that we were the "underclass". Even we who were white suffered "racism" by white people and called all sorts of names which I couldn't possibly write here.

After he came back from Dunkirk, my father was sent to Nigeria to train some troops and take them with him to Burma.
When the war in Japan finished, he stayed with them until they were sent back home, and went to the villages to explain about the ones who never returned.

I was born in 1949, and have photos of me on a swing in the garden being pushed by a Nigerian doctor, and being swung by my hands by him and his wife.

Racism is taught, yes, but not all parents and grandparents were racist even then.

I was born in 1952 and taught my children to accept people for who they are there is good and bad people in all races,all where welcomed in our home we had sikh,pakistani,chinese,and west Indian ,African ...After my dad died my mum was in a relationship for over 20 years with a lovely West Indian man until he died.

"how many of these posts have actually come from black people?" Well suttonJ , I do not know!

There is nothing to stop anyone of any race or colour from contributing to this thread.

I think it is an interesting discussion about how racial attitudes are formed - I know that I heard a lot of it when I was a child; and it is very interesting to hear from those who upbringings were so different from mine.

notnecessarilywiser, I had! I'm expecting the royalties to start rolling in!

I'm black. Born in UK of West Indian parents in 50's. Been here ever since. I've been lurking and posting on GN for years-it's perhaps something I haven't mentioned either!

And why would you!?

Your OP certainly wasn't directed at black people, Luckygirl.
I didn't see the relevance of that comment by suttonj.