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Re: The danger of not talking to your children about race
Okay this could get long and I hope it comes out right...
I think the reason minorities are more likely to talk to their children about race and skin color differences is because they feel the effects of it more than a lot of white children. A white child is less likely to get treated differently or negatively because of their skin color and in a lot of places in the US they are likely to be more mainstream. I know where I grew up there were less than 10 black children in my entire elementary school for awhile. I also think that white parents in a setting where there are more diversity and races present are more likely to talk about it with their children.
I kind of understand where some posters are coming from saying they don't want their children to describe someone by their race but there is a difference in describing someone for the sake of describing and describing someone with a hidden meaning or stimga associated with the color of their skin. KWIM?
I think it's important to bring those type of discussions back to your child, to their emotions.
aka, really? How would you feel if someone decided you were mean just because you're white? I'm sorry that he was mean to you and we can talk to him about that but it has nothing to do with what color he is.
And the point out all the other black people you know who aren't mean to him and point out people who are the same color he is who have been mean to him.
I don't know that you can do that now but for next time I guess.
Click me, click me!
I happy that you talk to your kids about cultural differences. I will say that avoiding arbitrary conversations about race could cause (and more likely will) issues with your child and how they view the world. If anything it will cause them to gloss over serious issues. We're all happy and race doesn't matter in this world. It does. KWIM?
Talking to your kids, starting with more simple conversations when they're younger and getting more in depth when their older creates comfort discussing race with others, helps them to easily recognize situations that are not okay (i.e. just breaking personal boundaries by touching a black woman's hair), etc.
Also, conversations help bridge the gap between white privilege and the reality of minorities.
I never knew what it was like to be a deaf person in this country until I started talking to my coworker. Asking tough questions like "Do you prefer deaf or hearing impaired?" (it's deaf by the way). You have to get out of your comfort zone in order to bridge the gap.
Zuma Zoom
I think what's worse than ignoring it are the parents who are all WE DON'T SAY THAT! WHERE DID YOU HEAR IT?!?! instead of fleshing out the thought processes that lead their kid to that conclusion and helping to redirect that. Telling them not to say it doesn't reshape their opinions. It just teaches them to keep it to themselves and instead, internalize it.
Click me, click me!
Don't have kids. But I saw the CNN/AC special yesterday. My hurried, perhaps unfair contribution to this thread is acknowledging my slight amusement at how this thread has turned into a Look How Racist I'm Not discussion when it's supposed to be about having a talk with our kids about race.
But, again. No kids. Perhaps it's all relative.
I did that. I was referring to the timing (proactive vs reactive). It seems forced to have the conversation out of the blue, and I don't think he'd be as receptive if it wasn't relevant. It would be like "Whatever, Mom--can I go play Lego?"
Not to speak for black people or anyone else here, but I think when people of color say they don't want to be described by their race they mean they don't want to be described ONLY by their race.
Well, as you stated 95% of people are white in your area. Outside of your area, and in serious situations in the country people do have to think about it. Unless you plan on chaining your kid to your house, or never encouraging them to leave, I'd say it's important to expand their world view.
Also, no, I don't think you need to redirect, "this man is black on your tv show."
I do think during story time or creative time, you can bring it into discussion almost as a lesson.
You can bring it up when you're talking about your friends or the teachers. So-and-so's mommy is black, and she has dark beautiful skin and curly curly hair. Long ago, people from Africa (point it out on a map), where the sun is hot had exposure and this caused skin to darken. It was our (emphasis our) body's way of protecting itself from the sun. People in areas where it was colder, had lighter skin, the sun wasn't there as much. Their skin grew lighter over time. Your teacher is white and she has light beautiful skin. Skin color doesn't make people good or bad. So even though we're all different, we still have two eyes, feet, hands, and hearts.
Something along those lines. Then when they're older, they can have more serious talks about race relations in the country.
Zuma Zoom
I'm not sure if this has already been discussed, but the problem with touting the virtues of being 'colorblind' is that I think it leaves children and adults ignorant of privilege based on race.
Y U No Like James Brown?
Then you're doing pretty good.
As for proactive conversations, I find it's easier to have them while they're watching a movie, while we're eating dinner, or in the car. But that's true of any topic.
I also talk to them while I play with them. They still hear you even if they are launching Clone Trooper wars.
Click me, click me!
Click me, click me!
I am extremely worried about this. Our area is pretty much all white, with the exception of the town the DS goes to daycare in.
At one, he is already picking up on race, and I don't know what to do about it. Not so much with the kids in his class that are black, but with their parents and even with the Christmas angel figurines in my mom and dad's nativity set. He openly reacts differently to them, and I don't know how to talk about race to a two-year-old.
I guess I've always approached this in the way that I thought if one of my kids said, "so and so has black skin" or whatever, that if I responded with, "we don't say that" or ignored it that I was somehow attaching a stigma people's skin color and implying that different, or noticing it, was bad.
I've mentioned before that Jackson's best friend is AA. Jackson spends a lot of time there, and he adores the whole family. It's been such an easy way to talk about race with him that I feel very blessed that we have that opportunity. I do think it's important that I have conversations with him (not just b/c racial issues are important), because I think he will stay friends w/ his BFF and I think that he needs to be prepared if he hears negativity directed at his friend b/c of his skin color. Right now, we just try to stress that differences are awesome, different isn't bad, etc.
When I was a teenager, I babysat my cousin in the summer, and we went to our parents' country club every day. There was one AA family there most of the days we were there, and the year she was 4 or 5 she noticed their skin color was different from hers. She turned to me, and said (SUPER LOUD, btw - they heard her), "Bethy, I think those little girls would be my best friends b/c they drank so much chocolate milk they turned into chocolate milk! And you know chocolate milk is my favorite!" I was mortified at the time - I was young (16) and had no idea how to respond to it - but looking back, it was actually kind of a sweet sentiment.
Seriously. Of the 500 kids at my 4 year old's school there are no black kids, no black teachers. I don't have any black friends. (ETA: I went to my facebook friends page (very stingy with my friends on facebook, I don't collect names by a long stretch) and I do have one black friend, but I see her extremely rarely) I have people I went to university with that are black, but I've lost touch with them over the years. This is why I have started (on occasion) the Q&A on tv. Picture books as well.
Yo. My daughter will crawl up into any black lady's lap weather she knows them or not or was invited or not. Everyone else she has to warm up to first.
I think ZB will get a good grounding in race/skin color. Her Uncle is black, her aunts and cousins are Mexican, her second cousins are Colombian, etc.
I did get a big shock when I realized she was afraid of her uncle when she was an infant because of the color of his skin. Now she doesn't notice, and loves him, but it took a while to get her used to him. I'm consciously trying to expose her more to different ethnicities.
(obvs I skipped over the whole thread so if this is out of place, whoops)
I guess I am wondering why you view it as an "issue" instead of something that is just talked about. Of course it should be age appropriate, and for young children there are few if any topics that warrant some huge discussion. I guess to me it is no different than discussing manners, sportsmanship, how we treat our friends, how to share, etc. I don't wait until my kid sits on my lap and asks "what are manners". Are you sure that you are as comfortable with talking about diversity as you think you are to the extent that it has to be made into an "issue"? I would think at younger ages the biggest thing is awareness and that doesn't require a dialogue about everyone's racial history.
For me I feel this is 100% true.
Example. one day at the doctor J said in his very loud voice in a silent room "Why did that brown lady ask you a question." He was refering to the receptionist so again in the silent waiting room (why do other kids neverfucking talk in these situations lol) I had to explain to him why we don't identify someone by their skin color. "But Why" Me fumbling for an answer. "But why" Me being more ackward etc etc.
And the whole time I was petrified I was going to say the wrong thing and be judged. But you are right we need to get over this stigma.
DS#1 has an irrational dislike of Mace Windu. As an adult, I was concerned about the racial implications. Turns out he thinks the purple light saber is girly.
DD will use boy or girl, but other than that, she doesn't use any physical descriptions when she's describing someone (hair color, eye color, height, anything). If you try and get her to describe someone, she uses personality traits or actions she's keyed into ("he likes whales, he fell off the jungle gym and hurt his arm, he draws people, etc."). When we played Guess Who with her the first time, she was utterly lost, and she still has a hard time getting it. She also doesn't notice if I get my hair cut, DH shaves his beard, etc.
Some kids aren't as observant as others about some things, and personally I don't think that changes the conversation about the importance of talking to kids about race at all. As I said, we have talked to her about it, and will continue to do so. I just don't get how people believe that since most kids are observant of people's physical features that *all* kids must be.
My daughter was afraid of her Uncle E because he had glasses. She just didn't like him. I'm not kidding when I say every weekend for months he would try to get her to look at him and she wouldn't. Finally she got over it.
I was just coming back to share another way to expose younger kids to diversity. You sort of touched on it, but books. Read them books where people are different races. The main characters, not just the friends. Mixing in colors also lets them know that there are people that don't look like them that they can relate to.
This, This, this, This, This is a link for age group 3-5
You could buy dolls/action figures in different races for them to play with.
Zuma Zoom
What I am realizing is this is probably more about how I interpreted the very existence of this iPhone app. I read it t say, get the app and then sit your child on your lap and go through it and have a talk. I feel like that is counter productive to raising a kid who is, not color blind, but color accepting. My original comments about not wanting to talk about it were in *that* way, although some read some parts of what I said to mean I don't/won't talk about race at all. I feel like when you sit your kid down and say "we're going to talk about this" it is because it's an issue and if we were using the app in that way, we would be making an issue out of it. Like we have the sex talk because not being careful or knowledgable about sex can lead to bad, long term, life changing ramifications. I don't ever want to treat race like dealing with it might have bad, long term, life changing ramifications. So, we address it when it's relevant (which is the word I kept using but I guess it didn't come across like I meant it?), but we won't sit down and say "there is something we need to talk to you about and it's that people are different races." Does that make more sense?
I'd probably answer why she asked you a question, and mention something like, her skin was brown and very nice/pretty, something along those lines so he'd get that it's positive.
Zuma Zoom
This is what my mom did. I had all the Ezra Jack Keats books growing up. Another fave was Hello, Goodby Window which has a biracial family. Back in the 70s there weren't as many options for me as there are for my kids or I probably would have had even more. I had black Barbies and watched tv shows with black main characters. I grew up in an all white town but had a lot of exposure to race and I think it had a positive impact on me. While my kids have more exposure to racial diversity than i did, I still have all those books for them, plus more, because, yes, they identify with that black/indian/whatever character in the story on a basic, human level.
Racism is an issue in the country. So while discussing racial differences doesn't have to be an issue as cookie was saying, not talking to them can be ignoring the elephant in the room, type of thing. Also there isn't a definite time stamp for relevance concerning racism or privilege. It starts early, I'm also pretty sure the two kids in your sig have been exposed already.
You can make it positive, you can do things like buying a black doll, or reading an Asian form of Aesops Fables, explain why Dora speaks Spanish and is brown.
When they get older I do think it should be addressed more like an issue. You might encounter things like this at school, with your friends, etc. Please know that intolerance isn't accepted in this household. People are different, but they're people first.
Zuma Zoom
This reminds me of something I read on here before, either here or the bump I don't remember, but the woman was in line at the grocery store and her LO asked why or stated that the guy behind her was black and she was mortified and fumbling over words. The guy addressed the mom and said it's okay, I am black. Or something to that effect.
My point is they notice if you get mortified/flustered whatever and to me that kind of makes it an issue. If they're just noticing the color of someone's skin who cares. Yes he was black, yes the receptionist was brown. They could have said the lady with yellow hair, a purple shirt, a hat whatever. It was just being used as a descriptor.
I would have answered that she asked questions because she was the receptionist and it was her job.
Isn't this, in large part, what I've said I've been doing?
Yea this is kind of where I am. My almost 3YO is super observant and inquisitive and surprisingly (to me) hasn't started asking questions or commenting on color differences yet. He has a black older cousin and aunt and while his nursery school is not super diverse there are several kids of Latin American, Asian and/or Middle Eastern decent enrolled. I don't really know where I'm going with that other than I've been kind of waiting for him to ask questions as a jumping off point, but I might rethink that approach. He's all over the differences between boys and girls and distinguishing a "man" from a "lady" at the moment.