During recess, K was having his snack with his usual group of friends in school.
I guess there are limited tables so they had to share table with another group of students – who were not part of K’s gang.
There was a vacant seat next to K.
But one student refused to sit.
He reasoned, “Oh no, he is Indian and I am not going to sit next to him.”
Obviously he was referring to K who is a little tanned, as the Indian boy.
K overheard and related the story to us. We took it as a joke – especially on his skin color.
But it is NOT a joke if you look deeper.
I don’t know how old is the boy who made the statement but it sounded highly racial.
Even though K is not Indian but I don’t sit well with the derogatory statement made by the student.
It must be taught by someone to him, either parents or teachers, to differentiate or worse… to discriminate people.
As parents, we must teach children to respect everyone: rich or poor, white or black, short or tall, Chinese or Indian.
We must not be biased and prejudice towards certain group of people. If you want peace in the world, this is the formula.
The boy might not aware of the impact of what he said but this is highly critical as this discrimination may lead to a bigger problem in future.
That’s how violence or war gets started. Because we don’t see unity in plural due to discrimination we pick up when we grow up.
This, too, is something I have to remind myself of regularly.
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