12: It must have been from rap music

I’m White, my son is Black and when he was 7 he suffered two separate incidents of racist abuse – being called ‘that’ word. When it first happened, he didn’t know what it meant – he just wondered why boys that he thought were his friends were shouting at him. Both times I went into school to talk to the Headteachers – and both times most of the discussion from them was about where the boys could have heard that word. Both times their consensus was that it ‘must have been from ‘rap music’’. There was no assumption that those words could have been picked up from parents or family members using racist language. This not only absolves White culture, but also what lesson does that teach my son – that people who might look like him (given the majority of rap artists are Black) are responsible for his victimisation (and their own). When I challenged the school they said that perhaps I would like to provide some materials/websites etc that might be useful for the school. I was happy to do that, but seriously they should have education in place already as a priority.