An unusual question about teaching and racial bias...
For context: I am white and my child is white. We live in an area where I'd say black people are at LEAST 50% followed by various other races and white people are edging more towards the minority. I typically don't have many issues and have lots of friends of various races including black.
My child is a preschooler and is very happy, friendly and social. However I've noticed in activities like swim classes, soccer, etc, my child tends to be the ONLY or one of the only white children. Now I know this question is usually an issue with the races flipped... but hear me out... my child will try so hard to be involved or get attention and I've noticed that the black teachers end up ignoring her more and praising and paying attention to all the black children far more.
I've been here for 6 years but my child is obviously just getting to the age of getting involved in these activities so it's a new experience. Most activities end up being predominantly black from every activity we tried. I don't have an issue with that, but I do have an issue with feeling that my child is considered not as important? Exactly how many POC have felt as I've heard.
I grew up in a very big melting pot of an area. Never thought of anyone as their skin color. Just friends and people. My area never focused on that and so racism really wasn't a huge thing. Black kids were definitely the minority (massively white/asian and Hispanic area) but there really was never any racist bullying or anything like that. It was a blessing I now realize to be raised in a pretty equal environment. I've actually never been a target of racism as a white person from black people until I moved here. I still love it here but it sucks sometimes to be treated that way as much as I try to ignore the comments, insults and attacks for literally the way I care for a cat (apparently wanting to make sure a foster family was a good fit by having them meet the cat first is "white people shit" bc they accidentally sent the wrong person [me] that text😂😂) so I don't want to move or anything like that. Just trying to figure out how to navigate my child growing up.
So what do I do? How do I deal with this? I literally see my kid all lit up and then slowly just dims throughout these activities when she realizes that she's basically being ignored and then starts acting out when she's seeing everyone get smiles, praise, attention, teaching and then the smile kind of goes meh when it gets to her... in terms of my child... it's mostly been from teachers... mostly.
Controversial post im sure but I'm hoping someone understands
Edit to add: in terms of where I am from- most of the families in that area have been there a LONG time historically, this was never a sundown town or anything like that. A lot of the area was just those (usually white/euro) families growing and then slowly more POC trickled in over time due to increases in certain types of industries that just brought more people (of many races) to the area. It's a pretty chill, laid back and middle of the road kind of area politically. Genuinely no comments, remarks, attacks, put downs, exclusions growing up in school towards other kids. Everyone was cool. So we were all raised to treat others the way we wanted to be treated. We were taught about the struggles faced by POC and taught actual history but didn't live in an environment like that.