Can a toddler be racist?
-
- July
- 14
I saw the headline, Toddlers who dislike spicy food racist, say report, and said, “What the?” Is it political correctness run amok?
At first blush, it certainly seemed to be.
The Telegraph newspaper in the U.K. was quoting a story about a study published in book form by The National Children’s Bureau that said if a child called spicy food “yucky” that he or she might be racist.
The 366-page guide for staff in charge of pre-school children, called Young Children and Racial Justice, warns: “Racist incidents among children in early years settings tend to be around name-calling, casual thoughtless comments and peer group relationships.”***
The guide goes on to warn that children might also “react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying ‘yuk’”.
“Young Children and Racial Justice: Taking action for racial equality in the early years,” by Jane Lane, was published by the bureau last month.
While it’s hard to argue that it’s a bad thing to try to nip racism in the bud, it could be said that it’s hard to properly interpret a toddler’s actions or speech in terms of intent.
If a child’s family doesn’t eat much spicy food, that child isn’t going to like spicy food. Simple. And children call things they don’t like “yucky.” Heck, sometimes they call things they do like “yucky.”
We didn’t eat much spicy food in our house when I was growing up because my father is king of the picky eaters. OK, maybe just the prince, as his mom was as least as picky as he is. He only really liked a handful of foods, none of which had much — how should I put it? Oh, yeah — flavor.
I mean, to this day, he doesn’t even eat pasta or rice. In any form. Going out for Italian food was a special thing that my mom and I used to do sometimes with my grandmother (her mom).
My mother, on the other hand, liked super spicy stuff. She used to down all sorts of hot chili peppers and similar things all the time. She liked most foods, and my grandmother boasted that she liked everything. Except kelp.
I was somewhere between. I liked most foods (except coconut and prunes, both of which I dislike to this day, though I will eat curry that has a coconut milk base), but I wasn’t much for spicy. I wasn’t used to it. It took me many years to get used to eating spicy foods and while I enjoy them now, most people I know who really like the spicy stuff consider me a rank amateur.
The point being, if I’d said “yuck” about some spicy food when I was a young’un, what would that have meant?
It would have meant, simply, that I wasn’t used to it, it didn’t taste like anything I liked, and I didn’t enjoy it.
It’s one thing if a child says he or she doesn’t like a food because “that’s what black people eat” or something similarly offensive. Sure, that does indicate a racist mindset that’s being taught in the home. But how can you interpret something as ubiquitous as a “yuck”?
In fairness, I didn’t read the entire publication; it’s not on the Internet; you have to purchase the book in order to read the entire thing. I’m going to choose to believe that what the guide says isn’t as clear-cut as The Telegraph is making it out to be, but it still seems a dangerous statement to make to people looking for ways to help interpret behavior as potentially racist.
This entry was posted
on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 7:30 am by Amy Vernon.
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Hmmm. My son used to not like crackers… I think this is silly, maybe even sensationalist. I don’t like okra, but then again, I’m a dang Yankee…
I guess if they are conditioned enough at a young age that anything is possible.
JT
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com
Well, its possible to be an accidently racist toddler…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrFRbHMrurk
Sure, toddlers can be racist, but lack of taste for a specific food means nothing. If you don’t like crackers, that doesn’t mean you hate white people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv7ZoX0-UJ0
I think it is interesting that the presumption is that you are racist if you dont like spicy foods.
Meaning, if you are from a culture that doesn’t use a lot of chili peppers or heat spices in your food. In other words – Caucasian racism against equatorial ethnicities (since thats where most chilies grow).
How DO we tell if the little black child is racist? Or how do we tell if the litte Mexican child is racist against a Guatemalan since both are “Spicy food eaters”?
This is a crap conclusion based on junk hypothesis based on a racist slant against northern European Caucasian ethnicities. Why else would you even propose this ridiculous conclusion?
What a joke.
This is just plain ridiculous.
Sure, a toddler is sentient enough to recognise differences between themselves and those of other cultural heritages – BUT – it seems that the answers given them by their adult role models when said toddler questions those differences would be what determines the attitudes that then form towards those of different heritage.
How the hell does food have anything to do with this? Give a toddler a red chilli and they knock it back because its TOO Mexcian. Come on!!
I could maybe see it if a child reacts negatively to foreign foods like mexican or indian as “yucky” but not if it’s just a case of their buffalo wings being a little spicy. I guess the thing is that most typically american foods like macaroni, pb&j, hot dogs and hamburgers aren’t very spicy.
I’m the first to agree that toddlers taste in food does not map to a racist tendency, but the author never actually made that assertion :
“that children might also “react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying ‘yuk’â€
By that I take it to mean that children who react poorly to unfamiliar or alien foods may be more likely to react poorly to unfamiliar or alien kids. This is not rocket science.
Racism is a form of orthodoxy – an arbitrary definition of the unusual or the unfamiliar or the different as ‘bad’. It’s also a basic tenet of human nature, and anyone who has sent any time around children knows that some kids are more open to new things and experiences than others.
It’s not a great stretch to believe that kids who are uncomfortable with new or different foods would be more likely to be uncomfortable with new or different people. Taken that way, it’s just a simple statement of the obvious.
All that being said, I find the whole notion of the book highly suspect. I simply don’t buy that we need to intervene and indoctrinate our toddlers with the idea that racism is bad. Dogmatic teaching of any sort is dangerous, and usually counterproductive – especially at that young age. Young kids are not equipped to process the world at a complx level yet, and so Dogma is often internalized in unintended, and not infrequently undesirable ways. Ideas that are hammered into kids at that age are writ deep in their personality, and show a remarkable resistance to rational thought and evaluation.
Rather than writing a book on preventing racism in toddlers, far better to spend the time and the energy as parents to simply teach our children to be open to – or at least accepting of – new people, new things and new ideas. If we can teach our children to think rationally, to manage their fear, and to empathize then we will have far more them and for humanity than simply teach them that ‘racism’ ( whatever that may mean to a toddler ) is bad.
The premise of this story is fundamentally flawed. My family is thoroughly racist against Hispanics (we live in Los Angeles). That said, we love Mexican food more than any other!
Ask the Germans if they love Turkish Döner kebabs, ask the English if they love Vindaloo. But here in LA we have more immigrants and their food than any of you! We have the best Ethiopian food, Jewish Delicatessen, Japanese cuisine, Vietnamese Pho, Mexican food from Jalisco, African-American Chicken & (belgian) Waffles, Indian food, Agentine/Italian pasta houses, Korean Barbecues (mongolian too). But no matter how tasty all these types of food are, us whites totally hate all those cultures!
Can we let children be children? for once? anytime now… before we start treating X year olds for std or something….
This is totally retarded. The reason toddlers don’t like spicy food in the traditional sense of it being hot food is because it causes pain neurons to fire. It’s torture. Idiots.
joanna, bravo, my sentiments exactly. between the over education and this nonsense. kids are no longer kids.
They are expected to read and right by age 3(overly exaggerated). They are taught about omosexuality.. my 2 mommies etc.
I have said this on a number of occasions about our children and about our lives.
about our children: according to ROME, they are not ours. they are the children of rome and we are only to provide proper care. Rome will raise and tell the children what and how they should learn. CPS has waaaay too much power. Not only that they will badger the good parents more harshly because its easy and they have nothing to fear, the real hardcore bad parents they stay away from out of fear.
About our lives, we have slowly given up all our rights in the name of security. Ridiculous and foolhearty. we are now a 3rd world country. everything is stamped with security and political correctness. (Fahrenheit 451,1984, Animal farm)
we are there now…
It will only get worse.. because I and others are a voice of one, everyone else are too affraid to stand up. Look at washington DC. finally the judiciary came to our aide and said, wait you cant prevent the ownership of guns,like so many other ridiculous laws that circumvent our rights and duties as americans. We need more people voicing and standing up and then maybe we will be back on track.
The government allows corporate america to offshore all our jobs out of the US. Why not ask rockland where the editing is being done on the paper? India, along with every thing else… and we arent in a recession? we have just as much dessert in the US under which there’s oil. we dont need to destroy Alaska or our oceans in its search. But the environmentalists want nothing of it. farming? what farming… they are paid not to grow. then teh little surplus corn we have is used for ethanol to dilute and extend the gas, reducing gas mileage. and raising the price of everything else…. milk is now more expensive than gas.
As a country we need to wake up, and i mean its up to the true citizens. Not the people riding the coat tails to take the money back “home”.
ok .. i am off the soap box now.
Ii know I am coming to the conversation a bit late but I have to say, I was shocked by many of the comments I just read. Two year olds are naturally picky eaters. It is thought that they are this way as a survival mechanism. If they are not picky at this stage they are more likely to eat something that could harm them. Their are kids who are more picky and daring than others when it comes to eating, however this does not always go along with their personalities and there may be many reasons why they are picky. Many verbal outgoing toddlers are extremely picky eaters. Also, some 2 year olds are more verbal than others and are able to express their likes and dislikes better than others.
Spicy foods that contain any type of hot pepper feel hotter to those who do not eat them often. You actually build up a tolerance. So a child who eats spicy food a lot will not be very sensitive to the heat. A child who tries spicy food for the first time will really feel it.
I have a 2 year old who loves wasabi peas??? What does that say about her?
I am killing myself laughing reading some of the post regarding the racist undertone that the toddler is conveying to people because he said Yuk to spicy food.
I agreed with some of the readers that they are too young to know and understand about racism or anything like. They are picky eaters, it hurt their tongue neurons and for god sake that is torture for grown ups who are not use to spicy food let alone to poor tender toddlers.
We do tend to put things out of context and PC gone bonkers. Plus my admiration to the child who eats wasabi nuts, it is an acquired taste and only the brave dare venture to that path of the wasabi. It took me 2 years to master the art eating shushi with wasabi sauce on it. This is coming from someone who eats birds eye chilies raw in salad.
Easily some of the best writing online. Amazed to see this level of detail (for free or for a fee). Keep up the good work, and thank you for opening my eyes to a new thing.