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The danger of not talking to your children about race
My .02: I haven't looked up the actual race apps, but the idea of a race app to help discussions on race irritates me for reasons I can't explain.
I hate the use of "your" in the title because it was clearly written for a white audience. But maybe I'm just being sensitive these days.
Many white parents are uncomfortable talking with their children directly about race. A 2007 study in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that nonwhite parents are about three times more likely to discuss race than white parents. Our hope, often unspoken, is that not mentioning it will show our children that it doesn?t matter.
But research suggests the opposite: that when we don?t talk about race, our children continue to think about it ? and what they think is that it matters too much to talk about. Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman wrote about this gap between what parents think we?re teaching, and what children are learning, in their ?NurtureShock? column for Newsweek in 2009. It?s the children whose parents do directly address race ? and directly means far more than vaguely declaring everyone to be equal ? who are less likely to make assumptions about people based on the color of our skin.
Anderson Cooper?s CNN program, 360, commissioned new research designed to look at this question further. They found that many more white children interpreted a neutral picture of an interaction between two students of different races in a negative way. One of the researchers who created the study, Dr. Melanie Killen, believes the difference comes from those different approaches white and nonwhite parents have to talking with their kids about race. White parents, she said, believe children are socially color blind. ?They sort of have this view that if you talk about race, you are creating a problem and what we?re finding is that children are aware of race very early.?
Last week, I wrote about ?the Talk? black parents have with their teenage sons, and how all of our children need to know why that ?talk? is standard in the African-American community. But this is a conversation that should start earlier, and go deeper. Have you, as a parent ? of any race ? directly addressed the question of skin color and bias with your children, and how?
I have, in part because one of my daughters is from China (in our family?s travels in that country, we were in a decidedly conspicuous minority), and in part because of Mr. Bronson and Ms. Merryman?s work. A few years ago, I was given two apps created by the Race Awareness Project to encourage those conversations.
One had children play a guessing game on an iPhone or iPad, choosing one among many diverse pictures of people, and then challenging a friend or a parent to guess, by the process of elimination, which was chosen. The other directly invited children to ?Guess My Race? when looking at a person?s photograph. It?s hard ? and that?s the best part. If you can?t even tell what ?color? the person in the picture is, how can it matter?
I was surprised by how delighted my children were with the apps, and with the freedom to ask questions that they conferred. We?ve had plenty of direct conversations since, and unfortunately, current events constantly provide us with the opportunity to have more. We?re not blind to race, or skin color. We talk about it ? and about how little, and how much, it means. Probably not enough ? it?s not some utopia of casual conversation about race relations around here. But the conversations do happen.
If you haven?t talked to your children directly about race, why not? Are you waiting for the right time, or the right question? And if you have, how did you open the door to the conversation, and how did your child respond?
Re: The danger of not talking to your children about race
Huh?
I will fully admit I have not had "the race talk" with my kids. I feel 100% certain that I do not need an ipad app in order to open that dialogue. Jesus.
Kids are kind of color blind. For instance, I remember a friend's six year old trying to describe an adult to his parents, he couldn't remember the guy's name. He described him as very tall, wearing glasses and bald. His parents took a few minutes to figure out who this could be. You see, the adult in question was black, but to the six year old that was not the most outstanding feature. The baldness and glasses were the outstanding feature.
I have asked my kids on occasion to describe people they see on tv. Not once, not once, have they mentioned the color of the person's skin.
As a result of having read Nurture Shock, I make sure that I discuss skin color differences with my kids. The other day my son referred to something as "skin-colored" and I pointed out that it was for some but not for others, and we had a good talk, insofar as one can have a "good talk" with a 4yo.
An app is bothersome because it seems to trivialize the issue. Apps tend to be associated with entertainment and frivolity, although to be fair there are some damn good and useful ones out there.
Interesting. My kids (5 and 4) have described skin color and have also asked about it.
This is fascinating to me. I have step children (young ones) that to my knowledge have never been talked to about race.
Speaking for myself only, if not prompted by a question directly from the child, I honestly do not know how or what I would say to one of them to initiate a conversation. I'd honestly like to hear suggestions.
I feel at a loss about stuff like this. I feel like I want my girls to accept others for their personality; not their appearances but then I have to talk to them about appearances. I don't mind explaining cultural difference and I want them to be accepting of them.
Maybe that is incredibly naive on my part but then again, I'm still trying to figure out how to tell my daughter how babies get in bellies.
Edit for spelling and to clarify.
My four year old is very aware of skin color. Maybe it is his diverse daycare that has started the dialogue. Just yesterday he asked us what color of skin our baby was going to have. Wr told him peach since dad and mom had peach skin. But i thought it was cute that he thought it was something that was questionable like color of eyes.
I really need to read nutureshock. Isee it talked about all the time.
I want to read it, too.
I agree with this. My mother never talked to me about race and I honestly think that is one of the reasons I grew up without prejudice. We always had books (Snowy Day was my favorite) that had characters of different colors and I feel like, for growing up in a literally all white town, I had a lot of exposure to different races and ethnicities. I believe my mom was conscious of it but she wanted me to see all people as "people," not "people of different colors." As an adult, she will sometimes correct me if I describe someone and use race as an adjective. I also think that is a little crazy because a lot of my friends who have a race other than white identify strongly with that race... but I also prefer to say "police man and police woman" because I feel like, as a woman, I don't want people erasing that part of my identity, no matter what baggage it comes with.
I digress.
If my children bring up race or I hear them say something that I think I need to address, I will. However, I'm never going to sit down and be like "let's talk about how brown and black people are different than us." I'm not going to open that door for them. I feel like we've given them a good start by sending them to a very diverse school, their class of 30 has pretty much every ethnicity and 3 children of same sex couples. My older son once said that "Reva has darker skin" and I said "sure she does" and he said "people are all different colors" and that was good enough for me. Maybe I'm naive, too, but I'm going with what I know.
The point of these studies though, is that kids really are *not* colorblind, despite how much we like to think that they are. Likely your kids are not describing skin color because 1) they've never heard you talk about it, and so 2) they don't know how to describe it, and 3) they think - because of you not talking about it - that it's somehow taboo. You just said (in your top paragraph) that you've never talked about it with your kids.
Once I started talking about race, on purpose, with my kid, I notice that he will use that as part of how he describes people. (Except when he says "that red man" or "that blue man" based on what color jacket or shirt they're wearing. Haha.) Now he knows that it's not off limits to talk about, and that it's a valid way to think about people.
The point of these studies though, is that kids really are *not* colorblind, despite how much we like to think that they are. Likely your kids are not describing skin color because 1) they've never heard you talk about it, and so 2) they don't know how to describe it, and 3) they think - because of you not talking about it - that it's somehow taboo. You just said (in your top paragraph) that you've never talked about it with your kids.
Once I started talking about race, on purpose, with my kid, I notice that he will use that as part of how he describes people. (Except when he says "that red man" or "that blue man" based on what color jacket or shirt they're wearing. Haha.) Now he knows that it's not off limits to talk about, and that it's a valid way to think about people.
I think it depends on the kid, and I have no idea which is more common. DD is almost 4, and she never uses skin color to describe someone. We noticed it actually when we got her a "Guess Who?" game, but we've realized since she doesn't do it with her friends, either.
Embarrassing story...not quite the same, but I was apparently similar as a kid. My entire family is Whitey McWhiterson, except for my two cousins who are adopted and Hispanic. I didn't realize they were adopted until college, I never noticed the (in retrospect, obvious) skin color/feature differences.
Brilliant.
But maybe these studies are skewed because people have been making race an issue for so long that these kids have absorbed it and don't know how to process it.
And, I'm pretty white, but I always thought that people of race didn't want to be described by their race? There was a series of billboards a few years ago that said "he's a really smart black man" and then had the "black" lined out. The point being that a black man is just a man and shouldn't have to be qualified by his race. I thought that was a pretty powerful message and it has helped inform my decision to not want my kids to talk about people in racial terms unless necessary, i.e. discussing their ethnic heritage if it applies to something they do that we don't, like a holiday.
Tangent alert:
I see this as sad because being adopted and being Hispanic are part of who your cousins are, if you didn't notice then it probably wasn't ever talked about. I wonder how your cousins felt about a whole part of themselves being ignored.
On topic:
Kids do notice differences in race, if they don't say anything it's most likely (not always, no one get offended) because they pick up that it is a taboo topic that they shouldn't discuss.
I miss you lite-brite!
OK, I see your point about the billboard. ETA: but isn't that the point? To take race out of the equation, meaning all smart men are smart, regardless of race? Because you could have seen a billboard that said "he's a really stupid (lined out) black man" and the message would be the same- that a man is a man, regardless of his race?
As far as the President, it's because it's relevant. He is the 1st black president because and that is something, but just to say "my black friend" or "the black kid in my class?" Is that really how we want kids to talk, rather than just "a kid in my class?" Do we really want race, and differentiating people by it, to be a constant part of the dialogue?
I honestly don't know how much my cousins talked about it when they were kids with their immediate family, although it wasn't brought up to me. One of my cousins has pursued finding out more his birth heritage, the other has no interest whatsoever, near as I can tell in this case neither of them have issues about it.
There are more differences when discussing race than just the color of someone's skin. It is the texture of their hair and other physical characteristics. I am finding from AA moms that they have had some pushback from their sons when getting haircuts because their school friends ask them if they are bald. Never asked about the color of skin but did think it is weird for a boy to have such a close haircut.
I think it does help when your child is in a diverse environment, but when they aren't it is bound to lead to questions. I feel like I get a whole rundown of the class when I pick up my 4 year old so I am really surprised to hear kids that have never had questions or made observations.
i'm not sure why being colorblind is considered virtuous, as it appears to be by some in this post. you can acknowledge differences in order to celebrate them, not merely to denigrate.
colorblind in the application of law? sure. colorblind in appreciating and loving the many differences in my friends and family? not so much.
Of course not a constant part of the dialogue. Of course if my kid described each and every person by their skin color, every single time he talked about someone, of course I'd be mortified. No one is saying that's the goal here. But to expect kids to *ignore* it? No, that's not good either. You see there's a middle road, right? There's a way to acknowledge our differences (women, men, christian, gay, adopted, etc, etc, etc), and place the due importance on those differences, without somehow thinking that being black is ALL that guy is?
Gah. Somebody who isn't white please help me out here, I don't think I'm making this point well.
(I'm not sure if you mean me, honestly). I don't consider colorblind virtuous, and we have talked to DD about race. My only point is that I'm not sure saying every kid keys in on race as an important distinguishing feature at a young age is universally accurate. (Neither positive nor negative).
Very good point. Very, Very good point.
I assume you're talking about me and I am not saying "color blind is virtuous." I am saying that there is a way to address race that doesn't necessitate sitting my kids down and having a race talk with them. I think that points out that different color people are different than us and no matter how I try to spin that, kids often associate "different" with "bad" on a very subconscious level. So, rather than use a freaking iPhone app to talk to them about race, we address it when it comes up and show that race, while part of who someone is, shouldn't be used to talk about that person unless it's relevant, i.e. 1st black president, but just to constantly be pointing out differences based on ethnicity isn't something I am interested in having my kids do. A friend is a friend, not a black, indian, mexican, asian friend.
The excerpt from Nurture Shock that made me go "Oh sh!t, I seriously need to talk about this with my kids."
I ended up buying a couple of children's books that were recommended by people who work with kids. They were a great jumping off point for the (ongoing) conversation.