The recent story on cnnhas been a good reminder of the necessity of talking to kids about race (especially in the U.S. context, but I assume elsewhere as well). How do you talk with your kids (hypothetical or not) about race?
Personally, my kids are 3 and 8. We live in a relative multi-racial environment, so they go to daycare/grade school and have friends with different racial backgrounds. However, we rarely talk explicitly about race. I know I’ve discussed the biological reasons for different kids’ appearances with them, and one time my son asked a question about the relationship between skin color and wealth. But it would be good to be more proactive on this topic. I’d love to hear how other Dopers discuss issues of race with their kids.
I’d be really interested to see the responses, too.
For what it’s worth, I guess I’m in what you’d call a mixed-race marriage. My husband is Indian, I’m white. It was odd filling out our census form and marking for my children two races: white and East Asian.
We don’t really talk about race, not because I don’t want to, but it doesn’t come up that often. My son has remarked, “Mommy, you’re pink. Daddy and I are brown,” to which I’ve responded, “You’re right. And there are lots of people who are even browner than daddy or lighter than me. Everybody looks different, don’t they? Some are browner than others, some are shorter, some are taller - isn’t it cool that there are so many different types of people?” My son has also had other kids ask him if his daddy was dark, to which he’s responded yes, but other than situations like those two, it’s never really come up.
Truthfully, I’m not really sure how to officially talk to him about race. I’m thinking that, especially for us, culture will be a more important discussion than anything else. We’ve had that discussion sort of when talking about churches and temples and customs (i.e., why we say Namaste to Tata, but not to Nanima (Tata is from India; Nanima is from Indiana)), but my son takes things more on an individual basis than an overall basis. In other words, he usually thinks, “Tata likes it when I say Namaste,” not, “Everyone who’s brown likes it when I say Namaste.” It’ll probably get more important as we travel more and as he accepts a wider world outside of himself. Four-year olds are notoriously egocentric, though he gets far more nuances than he did at three.
I deliberately ignore the subject except as necessary. Discussion hasn’t been necessary yet with my youngest. The older one is in school and and has had some instruction about historic figures where discussion of “race” is intrinsic, so it has come up; I explain the minimum necessary facts for her to understand what people are talking about, and I make it clear that I don’t agree with making any judgments of people on the basis of the race concept.
Actually, I’m a little sad that it’s even necessary to go this far. Before entering public school, I really think she was unaware that skin color was commonly considered a basis for classifying people. It would have been beautiful if she could have kept that innocence longer. I still think she doesn’t give much thought to it, but she will now sometimes mention skin color (along with other factors) in describing people.
Gee, I really wanted to find a cite that I recall from a couple of months ago, but I’m not able to locate it. The article I’m remembering said that white parents who practice being “color blind” and never remark as to anyone’s skin tone are doing their kids a disservice. It backfires, and their kids don’t notice people of all colors doing wonderful things.
Instead it’s a better idea to go ahead and note “Yes, your friend Tim has beautiful brown skin. And you enjoy playing soccer with him! Same with your friend Cole, whose skin is white.”
And I know it seems counter-intuitive, so I really wish I could find the article. I know it was discussed on one of the Mom-boards that I frequent, I’ll keep looking around.
It was weird, because even tho we live(d) in pretty lily-white suburbs, it always seemed like my kids were hanging out with Ahmed, Pradip, Manuel, etc. (Looking back at it I bet it is because my kids were never social butterflies, and may have gravitated towards other social “outsiders.”) We very quickly realized that when we heard a name that was unusual to us and asked, “What nationality is so-and-so?”, the kids essentially didn’t even know what we were talking about. After a couple of follow-up questions our kid might go so far as acknowledging, “Yeah, her skin is kinda darker than mine and she has black hair.” But it really seemed as tho they didn’t even perceive race. And as they got older, the idea that people would form adverse opinions about other people based on such things as skin color just naturally impressed them as incredibly stupid.
Which I thought way cool compared to my childhood where people were automatically characterized by their ethnicity/religion, and we blithely ate niggertoes and played smear the queer.
What I mean is that, they fail to notice and record “People with X color skin do good things” when they happen. They don’t create a context, a knowledge base, an internal characterization.
So then when there’s a criminal on the news or in the papers and the description says “A Black man robbed the 7-11”, now “black” has a specific meaning.
You notice they never say “A White man robbed the 7-11”. Color’s only noted when it’s non-white.
So you’re saying that a child raised ignorant of ethnicities will only mention race when it doesn’t match their own? Gee, sounds like everyone else, regardless of how they were raised. I wasn’t raised ignorant of race (some of my family members are pretty racist, actually) and if I’m describing, say, a burglar to the police, I’m likely to refer to a white man as a man and a black man as a black man. It’s not even something I do consciously, but it happens. I call shenanigans.
We’ve never really discussed it much, and luckily for us, I don’t think it’s necessary. We live in a very diverse neighborhood; white children *might *have made up a plurality at our son’s grammar school, and the middle school he is in now seems to be just as diverse.
In fact, sometimes he’s just a bit too colorblind. Recently when his mom was picking him up from school, our son was trying to point out one of his friends that he had talked about, but we had never seen She was standing some distance away in a group of kids. He kept saying things like “the girl over there in the blue shirt”, “no, the one next to the tall boy”, “the one with the pink shoes”…after much trial and error, my wife finally figured out who he was talking about, and said “Oh! You mean the black girl!”
She was the only black girl in a group of 5 or 6 kids, but it never occurred to our son to point her out by the color of her skin.
Sounds like I was vague – I meant that most MEDIA outlets mention race only when it’s non-white. Sorry for not being clear.
The article (and IIRC it was based on a study, though we all know how little that means) aid that for kids to develop a positive outlook on other races, it’s wise for parents to deliberately mention races to their children. And not just be color-blind.
Really? Not here. The news always provides an adequate description of the perpetrator when it’s relevant to the story: Caucasian is frequently used.
I don’t think kids really care about skin colour. It’s about as important to them as hair colour. How we, as parents, interact and treat others is the key.
My problem with raising children to be ‘‘color blind’’ is that it assumes a neutrality where none exists. In a society where one of the single greatest predictors of one’s quality of life, health, and socioeconomic status is race, it seems foolish to me to pretend that race doesn’t matter.
I’m not a parent, and the weird thing is, when I become one, my kid is very likely to be a different race than me–probably either black or Latino. Were that the case, I’d feel more inclined to see what my kid could teach me about race rather than the other way around.
Depends on the age and the environment. We’re, while Caucasian, a numerical minority on the north side of Chicago. My daughter does attend a mostly, but by no means overwhelmingly, white school, and she still seems fairly oblivious to race (she’s 5). We live in a mostly, but not exclusively, Mexican neighborhood, and she plays with the little girl upstairs (Mexican) and the next door neighbor (Black) with no comment other than that she loves Maia’s dark hair and Sasha’s skin is very pretty and she’s lucky because her mom doesn’t make her wear sunscreen (I know, I know, she should).
With my son, things didn’t get complicated until junior high, when the kids abruptly started segregating themselves by, mostly, music and fashion taste. The practical upshot was that there was a “Black side” and a “White side” to the lunchroom, and never the twain should meet, and that made me sad. My son insisted it was because of cultural considerations (“Mom, their music is awful, and they’re always talking about raunchy sex and drugs and beating people up!”) and I hoped it would be something they’d grow out of. His high school was even more heavily skewed “minority”, and he was literally one of 2 White kids in a class of ~300. That got to be a problem for him, and he felt very isolated and visible…much as I assume a Black kid in the White 'burbs must feel.
One day, he came home in tears and asked to stay home from Literature tomorrow. When I asked why, he said, “Mom…do you have any idea what it’s like to be the only White kid in a room full of Black guys watching Roots?” I let him stay home and watch the rest of the show with me instead of in class.
When stuff like this comes up, we talk about culture vs. race, and how all of us are subject to the environment in which we’re brought up. He’s a junior in high school now (at an honestly mixed race school) and has friends of all colors, although he’s cognizant enough of reality to cross the street to avoid groups of young Black men standing around looking like they have nothing to do. Is it racist? Well, perhaps, but as a young White man in an urban environment, it’s also wise not to present yourself as a target.
Upon reflection, we talked to our kids about race pretty much the same way we talked to them about just about everything else under the sun - whether major or minor. At that would in excruciating, neverending detail!
More seriously, when my kids first became old enough to talk and ask questions, I decided I would honestly answer any question they asked to the best of my ability. Worked pretty well - and better than any alternatives I can think of.
I remember telling my kids I thought it was foolish to dislike someone before you get to know them, just because of their skin color or religion. I told them that seeing as the vast majority of people are assholes, you really oughtta get to know them first, and then decide that they are an asshole based on their own individual merits! As a corollary, told them there were so few people out there who were worth a shit that you really didn’t want to unnecessarily cut down your chances of meeting them by eliminating entire classes of people right off the bat.
Racism is primarily a learned behavior. I would posit that “not discussing it” isn’t what creates the problems mentioned in the CNN study. It would be the opposite. It would be the repetitive re-enforcment of negative stereotypes and degrading of other people’s races in the household and in front of your children that would teach them to learn and develop racist attitudes.
At least that’s how it worked for both of my parents that grew up in the 40’s and 50’s in the southern U.S. They have both toned down verbally espousing of racist opinions, as they aren’t as socially acceptable anymore. It’s a wonder my siblings and I didn’t turn out to be as bigoted as they were. I think it had a lot to do with us going to integrated schools and they didn’t. We also all have university educations. Hopefully we have broken the cycle with all of our kids.
My son has black, asian, middle eastern, hispanic and white friends.
