In regard to Iam64 post @09:00 today, black children certainly did need protection from bullying and deep prejudice in times past which is drawn from my own experience.
While in primary and junior school in the 1950s I sat in class with probably the only black child who was a girl in that year as there were very few black people in Britain in general at that time. I suffered from a mild form of Dyslexia which was not recognized at that time. Susan (her name) helped me a great deal with my spelling writing etc and we became very good childhood friends..
We along with other school mates did always walk home together as she lived not far from me, and I was invited by her mother for tea at one time. When I asked my mother and father if she could come to tea with us, I was told: "she is black, having her here will get us talked about."
On another occasion, my father told me that associating with her would hold me back as "blackies have smaller brains than white people."
In the above, my parents did not see themselves as being outright prejudice as the views they held were the views of very many in those times. Therefore, in what Diane Abbott states in regard to black children needing protection from others in past times certainly matches my own experiences.
In that, protection was not required from the children they were educated alongside, but from their parents who would often try to shape the prejudice in their own children.
