Making good on my promise to be even more annoying – why blog at all if you’re not going to be a little militant about something? – I will now recommend that you all read this article, which my good friend Tope shared with me last week.
Newsweek is not my favorite news magazine, but this article was, I thought, one of the most interesting I have ever read about young children and how they notice and perceive racial differences. The article begins with the work of Dr. Brigitte Vittrupp at the University of Texas in Austin, who recruited a hundred Caucasian families with a child aged 5-7 to participate in a study on children and racial perceptions. Dr. Vittrupp wanted to know whether viewing multiculturally-themed videos would have a positive effect on the racial attitudes of children:
Vittrup sent a third of the families home with multiculturally themed videos for a week…
[A] second group of families got the videos, and Vittrup told these parents to use them as the jumping-off point for a discussion about interracial friendship. She provided a checklist of points to make, echoing the shows’ themes…
The last third were also given the checklist of topics, but no videos. These parents were to discuss racial equality on their own, every night for five nights.
At this point, something interesting happened. Five families in the last group abruptly quit the study. Two directly told Vittrup, “We don’t want to have these conversations with our child. We don’t want to point out skin color.”
Vittrup was taken aback—these families volunteered knowing full well it was a study of children’s racial attitudes. Yet once they were aware that the study required talking openly about race, they started dropping out.
(Headdesk moment number one.)
The article goes on to point out the fact that this study took place in liberal Austin, where “every parent was a welcoming multiculturalist, embracing diversity.” But that was only until these same well-intentioned, progressive white parents learned that they’d actually have to talk to their kids about race in a meaningful way – in other words, not as a construct, something to be swept under the rug because it makes everybody feel uncomfortable, but as something real that shapes a person’s experiences and provides one (if not the only) basis for his or her identity.
As the Newsweek article points out, the parents in Vittrup’s study “wanted their children to grow up colorblind. But Vittrup’s first test…revealed they weren’t colorblind at all. Asked how many white people are mean, these children commonly answered, ‘Almost none.’ Asked how many blacks are mean, many answered, ‘Some,’ or ‘A lot.’ Even kids who attended diverse schools answered the questions this way.”
(Headdesk moment number two.)
What a shock, never talking to your children about the reality of racial differences does not always produce universally accepting, colorblind kids!
Children were certainly not colorblind when I was going to school, despite the fact that we had few, uh, “colors” to look at, other than neverending variations on pale. My classmates would notice my “funny-shaped” eyes and black hair and ask why they were “different” (doubly puzzling, I am sure, because my parents were white). When I was in first grade, a boy said to our teacher, “There are white people and black people. Is that a little black girl?” He was pointing at me. This boy got to the first grade without knowing the difference between an Asian and an African-American, and he was definitely not alone.
A few years later, another boy called me a “chink” and a “Chinee” and pulled his eyes into slits to make fun of mine. When his mother found out, she was embarrassed, of course: “We didn’t raise you to care about what color someone is,” she told him. I found this statement rather – “misguided” would be a kind word for it – because, first of all, it wasn’t my “color” he “cared about,” it was my Asian features. And secondly, she seemed most bothered by the fact that her son had noticed I was “different” at all, rather than concerned by his chosen method of doing so.
I think a lot of parents just think that when it comes to not being racially challenged, it just goes without saying that their kids will be fine, since, after all, we are so evolved these days. Less said, the better, right? The article highlighted this telling statistic: A 2007 study in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that out of 17,000 families with kindergartners, nonwhite parents are about three times more likely to discuss race than white parents; 75 percent of the latter never, or almost never, talk about race.
(Headdesk moment number three, for those of you keeping score at home.)
Perhaps kindergarten sounds a little young to start talking to your kids about race and cultural diversity. Personally, I think it’s probably a year or two late. Even very young children will notice race, after all (which is why my daughter’s favorite relative is her aunt Cindy, the only one of the entire bunch who looks like me), and you can’t fault them for doing so. It’s only natural to notice. And yet many parents seem to expect their children to grow up just magically knowing how to approach issues of race, while giving them little to no guidance. Their education on the subject is limited to “race doesn’t matter,” the subliminal (or in some cases, overt) message being that it’s wrong or shameful to even notice race at all.
Most of us wouldn’t send a child off to take his driver’s license test if we had never taken him out on the roads to practice – how would he know what to do? Why would we expect our children to grow up free of racial prejudice, unburdened by our country’s troubled history of race relations, able to discuss the issue with any degree of comfort whatsoever, if we go out of our way to avoid all meaningful conversations about race?
For so many of us raised by well-meaning white parents – and I would include my own parents in that group – the ability to think honestly and talk meaningfully about these issues was never openly demonstrated or encouraged. It was a huge, gaping void in our education and our development as members of this society (and, in my case, a serious hindrance to the development of my own racial pride and identity). As if our lack of education were not enough, too many of us have filled that void with…nothing. We owe it to our children – I owe it to my daughter, not to mention all the people she will meet one day in school, at work, and throughout her life – to do better.
I have to confess that when I read that article (before your post), my main reaction was “Great, one more way that I am screwing up my children for life. I seriously give up.”
I can’t come up with anything specific to say that doesn’t sound defensive and ridiculous, but I just don’t see why these are headdesk moments. One of the constant mantras of parenting advice is that children pick up on your attitudes and daily practices, not on infrequent, deliberate, grandstanding speeches. Why is it insane for people to think that if they are racially and culturally tolerant, their children will be too? In a society where you practically have to feel guilty for having white skin to be politically correct, is it surprising that some people are nervous to initiate a discussion with their young children for fear of doing it wrong? And how exactly does one navigate a discussion of the complexities of the history of race in America with a child under 5 without giving them nightmares?
It’s just hard to believe that despite years of multicultural food/music/dance/books/family members/friends/loved ones, my children are harboring racist thoughts because we haven’t yet deliberately conversed about race. Especially when my (white) children are actually racial minorities in their classrooms. Oops, I let the defensive slip in. Wait until you see a picture of Isabel with her new best friend– they are quite the mismatched pair.
It’s just hard to believe that despite years of multicultural food/music/dance/books/family members/friends/loved ones, my children are harboring racist thoughts because we haven’t yet deliberately conversed about race.
I’m not sure you could define a small child’s thoughts as “racist,” particularly if these thoughts and opinions are based in understandable ignorance resulting from a total void of any discussion of race. In that case, it’s natural childlike tendencies to prefer the familiar, which I thought the article did a decent job of pointing out. But there IS a void in many cases when it comes to discussing racial issues (not just institutionalized or historic racism), and it stands to reason that if parents don’t fill the void with something real, it will get filled with…well, something else, possibly far less positive.
I find it interesting that you assume a talk with young children about race has to include all of our nation’s troubled history + “grandstanding speeches.” It doesn’t have to. That said, when did you learn about slavery, to pick one historical example? I think we learned about it in “social studies” at a fairly young age. It didn’t give me nightmares, though of course it did shock me.
I know it seems a bit harsh and strange to have to talk about race to your kindergarten-aged child. (Not yours specifically, I mean a kid that age in general.) However, ignoring issues of race is a luxury that people (and small children) of color do not have. If things are going to get much better than they are, it is NOT something that people of color can discuss (out of necessity/survival) while white people largely ignore it.
In a society where you practically have to feel guilty for having white skin to be politically correct
I am not sure how to address this. It’s a troubling issue to me too. I DON’T think white people should have to feel guilty, nor do I think white guilt serves much use or even = political correctness. Or that “political correctness” = racial tolerance/equality. Or that being PC is in and of itself a worthwhile goal – it’s not.
This is my last comment and then I swear I’ll refrain from any more posting till you’ve had a chance to respond…I really am glad you commented, and I wish more of my friends would respond in an honest, thoughtful way about all this.
I have to say, I don’t really understand the defensiveness of white people when these issues are raised. I also don’t understand why “guilt” is almost the first thing that is mentioned. Really, I wasn’t trying to make anyone feel guilty – I NEVER try to make anyone feel guilty about racial issues – but inevitably it is among the first words I hear in these discussions.
The point of sharing this article, at least as I saw it, was not to make white people feel like awful parents, but to get ALL people to really THINK about race and how their children are learning about it – so they can help their kids to understand it (of course not all at once, that’s impossible!) and grow up into anti-racist people. Which doesn’t happen automatically, as the article pointed out, even in diverse schools/cities.
Well…. in this particular instance, I think a look over your post might clarify the defensiveness. This article deals with liberal, progressive white parents who were willing to let their children take part in a study about racial attitudes. Parents who have probably been doing their best to raise tolerant children, may even have put considerable effort into it, and who might have been nervous that their children might develop negative racial attitudes as a result of the study– might you not pull your child out of a study if you felt that was the case? I have always and everywhere been told that “children don’t see race.” It’s a construct that society teaches them, and we should let them be free from that as much as possible. Diverse environments and exposures are to be valued. Until THIS study, that is what everyone has said, so why do these parents (and by extension, all other well-intentioned white parents) deserve to be mocked for believing it? “Having a bone to pick” and repeatedly virtually banging your head on your desk doesn’t really imply that you think much of them, their attempts to teach their children, or anything they might have to say in the matter.
I know that your experiences with racism as a child and an adult are very hurtful for you, but consider that some white people might be uneasy talking about race because nonwhite people have made them that way. Seriously, have you ever had your personal safety threatened because you used the wrong racial term for someone? And I don’t mean a foul term, I mean, say, the difference between Hispanic/Tejano/Latino/Mexican/Spanish. Or the difference between Black/African American/etc. I just cannot imagine a situation in which *I* could bring up race with a nonwhite person who was any less than a very close friend without someone taking offense.
And, finally, I happen to be dealing with a child in that same age bracket currently, and I am battling just to come out ALIVE every. single. day. I cannot even count the thousands of ways I have probably damaged her psyche by doing the wrong things already, so reading that I am ALSO not doing a good job on that front, which I thought was covered, was not so very encouraging. I imagine many of the parents involved in the study felt the same way.
It’s interesting to me that you say you’ve always been told “kids don’t see race.” I’ve never really been “told” that and certainly didn’t know that “everyone” said/believed it. I’ve never met a person of color who thought that was the case.
In my experience, the kids I grew up with – who, I would imagine, are fairly typical of kids everywhere – were not colorblind. It wasn’t just because I went to a predominantly white school, either; as the article notes, in more diverse schools, you also see, as the kids grow up, an increased tendency to self-segregate (on a related note, an excellent book to read about this is Beverly Daniel Tatum’s Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?). There were actually a lot of Hispanic kids at my junior high and high school, and while a few of them were in my classes and friends of mine, they did keep to themselves a lot.
That does NOT mean kids are racist at Isabel’s age, of course – as I said before, I don’t know if it’s even possible to apply such a deliberate motivation to kids so young – but of course they notice it, at least in many, many cases. And as you said below, they will look for any difference, and hone in on it, and in some cases make fun of it. So with that going on, it just seems obvious that a parent would have occasion to talk to them about real and perceived differences – not just in the classroom, but in the world at large.
“Having a bone to pick” and repeatedly virtually banging your head on your desk doesn’t really imply that you think much of them, their attempts to teach their children, or anything they might have to say in the matter.
I’m sorry if my choice of words offended you or any other white parents. I obviously can neither approve nor disapprove of how anybody else talks to their children about race, since I don’t get to witness it happening. I usually don’t think about “headdesk” being such an alarming term for people; it’s just an overused internet-speak expression of frustration, as you know I’m not actually banging my head on a desk. (I don’t even have a desk.) My headdesk moments were solely limited to the parents in the study who never brought up the issue at all, were shocked that their kids might have a negative thought or two about people who look different (again, given what you say in your comment below, of course this is the case! Not because kids are evil, but because they notice differences, point them out, sometimes in negative ways, etc.), and PARTICULARLY the parents who pulled out of a study on racial attitudes because they were required to talk to their children about race. Seriously, don’t you find that a bit illogical?
As for “having a bone to pick,” that was a poor choice of words. Again, I used the cliche without thinking much. In the context of my previous entry, when I mentioned I would be writing about this article, I was attempting to express mock indignation, not actual indignation. But of course that sort of distinction is impossible to be sure of in text.
But…and this is where you’ll probably brand me as an angry Asian person, if that hasn’t happened already in your mind…I *do* have a bone to pick, I guess, and it isn’t really for me. It can’t do away with past hurts. I’m worried about sending Abby to school in a few years, to a school and a society where…THIS is how it is. THIS is the best we can do. Maybe I’ll be lucky and she’ll attend a diverse school where the kids DO understand one another magically and do NOT self-segregate as they get older, and maybe other kids won’t ask her questions about her eyes, and maybe as they grow up they will not just IGNORE her mixed-race heritage, but respect it, incorporate it into their understanding of who she is and why they like her. But looking at things as they are now, I am doubtful this will happen, at least 100%.
I know that your experiences with racism as a child and an adult are very hurtful for you, but consider that some white people might be uneasy talking about race because nonwhite people have made them that way.
Yeah, we all bear some of the fault for the crappy way things are now, and the fact that you can only talk about this with a few people – and the fact that I often avoid doing so because I want to preserve relationships with people I care about. I don’t know, maybe white people would relax a little if they realized that most people of color aren’t sure how to talk about this either, all the time? That we’re also worried about offending our friends? And that, when we frequently choose to stay silent, for those same friends or relatives or coworkers or total strangers, it stings a little inside?
Also, I don’t think anyone has to go around starting conversations about race with all people of color they meet. For my part, I’d be satisfied if I didn’t get dismissed, shut down, or told my feelings and thoughts are wrong almost every time *I* bring it up. It would be an excellent start to a continuing dialogue with people I know, and people I don’t know.
And, finally, I happen to be dealing with a child in that same age bracket currently, and I am battling just to come out ALIVE every. single. day. I cannot even count the thousands of ways I have probably damaged her psyche by doing the wrong things already, so reading that I am ALSO not doing a good job on that front, which I thought was covered, was not so very encouraging. I imagine many of the parents involved in the study felt the same way.
Yeah. Parenting is hard. There are too many things to get wrong, or not quite right, anyway, and all our kids will need therapy someday. My goal is to limit the amount of money Abigail has to spend on it.
j/k. You and John are one of the best parenting teams I know, and again, I don’t live with you, so I guess I don’t know what goes on, but Isabel and Sophie seem proof enough that you know what you’re doing.
I don’t know if you’re interested in talking to them about race someday, as the opportunities arise, but there’s a whole website devoted to raising nonracist kids, Anti-Racist Parent. I also think the Tatum book is a great read for anyone. She is very gentle and unassuming – I don’t think there’s a single headdesk in her entire book.
I’m reminded of the situation my sister was talking about just the other day. Her kids have come home from school with the idea that it is wrong to use a person’s race as a way of describing them–even to the point of describing a black person as a “dark complected” person, which makes it very confusing if you’re trying to figure out who they are talking about.
On one occasion, my niece was telling a story about a classmate, and in trying to relate who she was talking about, she hemmed and hawed, saying, “you know, the girl with the long, dark hair…” Finally my sister guessed–”oh, do you mean the Asian girl?” and my niece “corrected” her–insisting that she shouldn’t describe her as Asian, because race isn’t supposed to matter.
And so now I am puzzled–it certainly can’t be wrong to use race to describe someone, can it?
You could talk all day about the “dark complected” person and no one would know who you meant, until you named their race.
Good point, Barbara. I understand why people do this – of course it stems from good intentions. But it’s also confusing and ridiculous!
I was thinking about this while I picked up Isabel from school. That “75% more time” that nonwhite children spend talking about race is not necessarily positive and productive time. My first (as well as next several hundred) real life encounter with racism was with Hispanic girls making fun of me for being white. I had read a lot of books by that point and knew plenty about the racial injustices of the world, but that was the first time I *knew* that race was still a big issue. The first time my brother knew race EXISTED AT ALL was when we visited our grandma in North Carolina. He was riding his bike and was chased down, taunted, and injured by a crowd of black children. My brother has one, yes ONE friend, who has been his best friend since the boys were 5. This boy is black and adopted by Hispanic parents. I can guarantee you that those children did not come up with their racial comments on their own, they clearly heard plenty about stupid white people at home, and I think whatever lack of conversation my parents had with us was better than that!
I learned almost nothing of worth about social studies through my school. I learned it through books I read on my own or PBS specials, and I would usually talk to my mother about them. This article just paints a picture for me of sitting down and having “the race talk,” kind of like we will one day have “the sex talk.” Isabel will likely learn about slavery when we read the Addy series of American Girl books. So far we have read Kirsten and Josefina. These things will happen, but honestly, 5 years old being too late? Isabel thinks people look just like her if they have long hair or wear pink shirts, and only recently thought our relatives lived by the airport. I am almost positive that if we sit down and talk about race today she will go to school on Monday and say something embarrassing and maybe hurtful to another child–she’s just not old enough to get it.
That “75% more time” that nonwhite children spend talking about race is not necessarily positive and productive time.
Yes, good point.
Re: Isabel, you’re her mother, and of course you have a far better idea than I do about what sort of conversation she’s ready for. I agree that a big “race talk” (like the “sex talk”) is not really a conversation you could have with most young children, but then, I didn’t get the impression that the author of the article necessarily thought it was the most appropriate method, either.
And even with the big sex talk, let’s face it, you don’t get a lot out of it if it’s only one huge (awkward) talk; you have to discuss the issue several times, as there’s so much that could be included, and so many important things to say – and what’s appropriate for a 5th-grader to hear is not enough information for a 15-year-old. Similarly, when it comes to race, I’m advocating continuing education, at an age-appropriate level, and not a one-time college-level seminar.
The conversation I really think most white parents NEED to have with their (older) children at some point is the white privilege conversation. But since a lot of white people don’t even want to believe that such a thing exists, that’s obviously a no-go.
Pingback: for my daughter’s sake « Moms in the Lobby
Here goes nothin’:
Some friends and I have been discussing this Newsweek article for almost a week on Facebook and in our blog circles. The article discussed how (and if) children are adequately taught about race in schools and homes across America. The statistic that really got to me was this one:
“What parents say depends heavily on their own race: a 2007 study in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that out of 17,000 families with kindergartners, nonwhite parents are about three times more likely to discuss race than white parents; 75 percent of the latter never, or almost never, talk about race.”
I’ll speak from the 75% demographic for a minute. As a member of this majority, I am very troubled by the silence of my comrades. I understand the awkwardness of talking about race as a white person. In doing so, I run the risk that my clumsiness may burn the bridges of political correctness I have spent a long time building in an earnest attempt to avoid the cruelty and indignity that is my racial inheritance. But though I take a risk in doing so, I still must speak about the dynamics of race—particularly to my kids.
The worst part about not talking about it is that kids will learn about race entirely by osmosis. The culture-at-large will be the one to teach our children what to think about race. Their understanding will be entirely shaped by the circumstances they encounter in school, in places of worship, or in the marketplace. And if you’ve never consciously experienced that, I can tell you firsthand that our culture is a lousy educator.
Our children will learn exactly what most of these kids were taught: that you can be amongst people different from you without really being a part of those folks’ lives. You can still stay with “your own.” It’s not enough to integrate the schools, we have to integrate our communities, our own homes, and our hearts to embrace people who don’t look or talk like us.
It is a challenge as a parent to do these things, particularly when it creates discomfort because we, ourselves, are caught up in the segregation of the culture. Many of the kids in the article were part of multiracial school environments, yet as the article says,
“[Duke University's James] Moody found that the more diverse the school, the more the kids self-segregate by race and ethnicity within the school, and thus the likelihood that any two kids of different races have a friendship goes down.”
The authors go on to add:
“I can’t help but wonder—would the track record of desegregation be so mixed if parents reinforced it, rather than remaining silent? It is tempting to believe that because their generation is so diverse, today’s children grow up knowing how to get along with people of every race. But numerous studies suggest that this is more of a fantasy than a fact.”
As white people, our family intentionally moved into a neighborhood and have found a church where the families are from many nations and ethnic backgrounds. We have made efforts to incorporate books, music, and movies that show a broader spectrum of humanity than what our kids wake up to every morning. And still, we have yet to really bring those influences home in the form of ongoing intimate relationships with people of color.
We hope to change that over time, but in the meantime, we want to deal with the questions and the confusion that will come honestly, confessing our inability to resolve every issue and confronting our own prejudices as we go along. I think that’s the best we can hope to do, but it’s something we often feel alone about over here in Camp 75%.
The worst part about not talking about it is that kids will learn about race entirely by osmosis. The culture-at-large will be the one to teach our children what to think about race. Their understanding will be entirely shaped by the circumstances they encounter in school, in places of worship, or in the marketplace. And if you’ve never consciously experienced that, I can tell you firsthand that our culture is a lousy educator.
Yep. Thank you for reposting this here! I always appreciate and value the conversations I get to have with you and Cat – I’m glad they are so frequent. Have to do it in person someday soon.
I remember being SO SHOCKED when you told me the story about the kid making fun of your eyes, because to me that sort of thing seems off limits. But really, mean kids make fun of other kids for everything– their hair, their weight, their clothes, their teeth, their glasses, their family, their accents– they will mock ANYTHING that they think will earn a reaction. So it’s funny that I would be so much more shocked at a kid making fun of Asian eyes than a Southern accent or the wrong tennis shoes.
You know, I went to parochial grade school, and they kept us on a short leash. That sort of taunting was really unusual, but it still happened, of course. I DID get taunted for glasses, clothes, my family, and being a nerd, incidentally, but the one that really bothered me was the chink-eye. Which is why it didn’t make me feel any better when my mom was like, oh, that’s just what kids do, I got teased for having red hair. I knew it was different; it felt different to me than being teased for other things. I felt more ashamed, and also more helpless to ever “fix” what was wrong with me, because after all, I could get contacts one day and maybe better clothes, but I would ALWAYS be Korean.
I don’t mean to sound like I think your eyes are on the same level as tennis shoes, only that I think for some of the children doing the taunting, it may seem that way. When they get such a strong response from parents– stronger, perhaps, than for other teasing they might engage in, they conclude that race is something they cannot talk about.
We’ve already had to deal with Isabel noticing disabilities and teach her appropriate ways to express concern and curiosity. After John and I had several discussions about our city being “the fattest in America,” she came down with a fear of obese people that took some work to deal with. Race just hasn’t seemed to be a big deal to her. Although the girls are white, some of their closest and most treasured relatives are not, so maybe that makes our experience a little bit different than some.
I’m sure you’re right about the kids doing the taunting, and how they wouldn’t necessarily distinguish between “funny eyes” and “funny shoes.” It just felt different to me, on the receiving end. I was always really conscious of being Asian and different because of it, and walked around at school all the time feeling vulnerable – as if it was something everyone saw, all the time (which it was!), that they could mention or make fun of at any moment. It took years to outgrow this, and sometimes I am not sure I have, or if I’ve just become so used to it I don’t think about it anymore.
I’m glad Isabel and Madeline have relatives who aren’t white, and that race isn’t a big issue for them yet. At some point, of course, they’ll figure out that it’s an issue for other people – if they see someone at school being picked on for some difference or other, for example. It seems kind of inevitable.
Great post, Nikki. You wrote: many parents seem to expect their children to grow up just magically knowing how to approach issues of race, while giving them little to no guidance. Their education on the subject is limited to “race doesn’t matter,” the subliminal (or in some cases, overt) message being that it’s wrong or shameful to even notice race at all.
I agree. Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of white people think “If I try pretend these differences don’t have social meaning and consequences, kids won’t pick up racial prejudices.” There’s just too much cultural baggage for that to succeed. As you say, less said is probably not better.
Terri wrote: One of the constant mantras of parenting advice is that children pick up on your attitudes and daily practices, not on infrequent, deliberate, grandstanding speeches.
There is truth to this, but I think reality is more complex.
To choose a very simple example, we don’t just wash our own hands in the hope kids will notice and imitate us. We wash their hands too, and as they get older we teach them how to do it themselves with both words and actions, and we also explain different reasons why handwashing is good. And even when we’ve taught them to do it for themselves, we still provide little cues and reminders to reinforce the lesson (“We’re about to sit down for dinner. Has everyone washed their hands?”).
Of course, even frequent sermonizing about handwashing will probably have little effect if kids see that we rarely do it ourselves, and I think that’s the primary point of the “mantra.” But that doesn’t mean doing it ourselves is sufficient to teach them.
When it comes to things we don’t want kids to do, conversations about it may be even more important. We don’t just tell the truth and hope kids will get the message and never lie, for example. We must also talk with them about the value of honesty and the harm dishonesty causes.
And, as I hope these examples show, not all conversation is limited to “infrequent… grandstanding speeches.”
Don’t worry, I know you’re not saying that we should only teach by example and never teach by speaking! :) But I want to emphasize the importance of conversation in education and formation.
Terri asks: Why is it insane for people to think that if they are racially and culturally tolerant, their children will be too?
As in the examples of handwashing and telling the truth, I agree that our behavior is a crucial element in the education and formation of children. And like the other two examples, I think race should also be something we discuss.
We really can’t afford not to. We’ve inherited a lot of racial problems from our cultural ancestors (if not our personal ancestors) that we and our children are going to have to face and deal with throughout our lives. If handwashing is important enough to merit long reinforcement in both word and deed, how much more do kids need guidance in navigating complex social issues like race! As Nikki says, if we don’t provide input, kids will get input elsewhere, and a lot of that won’t be beneficial.
Speaking as a white person, it’s not hard for me to think of good reasons that this formation should include conversation, especially with white children who have white parents.
There are, for example, more occasions for the Asian child with Asian parents to learn about interracial relationships from watching his parents than there are for the white child. Why? Because people of color are usually minorities in the larger community, an Asian child generally sees his parents interact with more white people than a white child sees her parents interact with Asian people.
Because a child of color is surrounded by white people, white people and interracial interactions are more familiar to the child of color than the other way around. So it seems reasonable to me that while all children need verbal reinforcement of the behavioral lessons, white children may need it even more.
Nikki is right about this: ignoring issues of race is a luxury that people (and small children) of color do not have. If things are going to get much better than they are, it is NOT something that people of color can discuss (out of necessity/survival) while white people largely ignore it.
Your children, Terri, are lucky to have so many people of color in their classrooms. That is not a common experience for many white people. I hope that they also have lots of good interracial relationships outside the classroom too!
Terri mentions living In a society where you practically have to feel guilty for having white skin to be politically correct.
I think that many white people do experience a sense of “white guilt,” but I agree with the antiracist writers who argue that living in guilt breeds a frustration and sense of helplessness that is unhelpful to the cause of antiracism. If we’re feeling guilt, I think it’s a sign that we need to change. White people can and should work to forge a positive racial identity through antiracist action.
Terri asks: how exactly does one navigate a discussion of the complexities of the history of race in America with a child under 5 without giving them nightmares?
As with other lessons, I think there are ways to talk about these issues that are age-appropriate, and we don’t have to cover everything all at once. When showing a three year-old how to use hand sanitizer, for example, one doesn’t need to go into “it dissolves cell membranes, causing bacteria and many viruses to lyse.” :)
There are actually helpful books for parents with titles like 40 Ways to Raise a Nonracist Child!
Terri wrote: It’s just hard to believe that despite years of multicultural food/music/dance/books/family members/friends/loved ones, my children are harboring racist thoughts because we haven’t yet deliberately conversed about race.
Given all the cultural baggage we’ve inherited, I think it’d be a miracle if any of us didn’t harbor some racial prejudice, however unintentional. Even those of us who are committed to actively struggling against racism. I probably do.
Terri wrote: That “75% more time” that nonwhite children spend talking about race is not necessarily positive and productive time.
Not necessarily. But we should work to make it positive and productive when we do it. :)
Terri wrote: This article just paints a picture for me of sitting down and having “the race talk,” kind of like we will one day have “the sex talk.”
I would imagine that you’re probably already talking with Isabel about sex, both explicitly and implicitly, in age-appropriate ways. More than you might consciously realize. Like Nikki says, “I’m advocating continuing education, at an age-appropriate level, and not a one-time college-level seminar.” :)
I’m also going to recommend a series I saw on YouTube (not sure if it’s still there) on white privelege. Cat will know the name of it, so hopefully she’ll post it. It’s an excellent discussion about how invisible whiteness is in our culture. I think we could all have a more productive discussion about race if we, as white folks, understood the all-day inescapabilty of racial stigmas. I have some small experience with that being a person with a disability (rheumatoid arthritis) in that my disease is visually noticeable to anyone paying attention. Still, most of the time (unless I’m waving my hands around or really struggling to turn to hear someone behind me), I can blend into a crowd and escape attention. I, too, was picked on by other kids and harassed for getting special “treatment” during seasons of flare-ups, etc. We all know kids are astute observers, and they can exploit differences and target other kids in the process.
We can teach our kids not to be cruel, but to tell them to ignore what they are seeing (color, shape, size, ability) isn ot really helpful. I know for myself, I’d rather endure a question a person thought was stupid or intrusive than have a mom hush her kid when she asks what’s wrong with me. And I know race is not the same as disability, but I think as our non-white friends have already demonstrated in this discussion, if we talk about our fears and confusion openly in an expressed desire to betterunderstand and love one another, even the clutziest of comments will be received with grace. And us white folks need to kind of suck it up and be willing to look stupid if need be. It’s the least we can do for those who have and continue to endure humiliation and indignity because of the supremacist constructs we’ve all inherited.
That WAS a good series on Youtube – and of course, I can’t remember the name either, so hopefully Cat will post it in this thread.
if we talk about our fears and confusion openly in an expressed desire to betterunderstand and love one another, even the clutziest of comments will be received with grace. And us white folks need to kind of suck it up and be willing to look stupid if need be. It’s the least we can do for those who have and continue to endure humiliation and indignity because of the supremacist constructs we’ve all inherited.
Thank you for this and all your comments, Cayce. I don’t actually think that the very, very few instances of racial prejudice I have encountered compares with what many people of color, or many people with disabilities, have experienced. The very little I *have* experienced, though, does play a part in convincing me that we have to do better by our own children.
It’s very hard to talk about, as you say, and of course no one of any color wants to look or feel stupid. I can’t speak for all POC, but I can say that when someone – particularly someone I know well and care about – tries to talk to me about this, even if I disagree with some points, I am usually just so grateful to him for actually engaging with me on it that my opinion of him only increases. I don’t expect we’ll end our conversation in perfect harmonious agreement. But it’s still worth talking about in a thoughtful, honest way.
And again, it’s not easy for POC to have these discussions, either. We run the risk of being accused of anger or bitterness, holding a grudge, playing the “race card,” looking for pity, trying to cause guilt. Whenever I write about this topic, I always feel as though I must do so while apologizing frequently and inserting tons of disclaimers (“sorry if this offends you,” “no, I don’t think you are racist!”). As another friend wrote in an email to me today, “The whole conversation about race is rigged so that white people have to check themselves as little as possible and so POC have to constantly fall over themselves to talk about racism in a way that doesn’t make white folks uncomfortable – which, you know, good luck with that one.”
Hi everyone. You are all too quick and longwinded (j/k) for me to get a word in edgewise, but I would like to try to add something as a white father of a half-asian little girl, and as the husband of an asian who has been talking with me a lot about racial issues lately.
FOR WHITE PEOPLE
I think the white – person of color discussion on race is pretty much like a marital discussion, in which the white person is the man and the minority is the woman. I’m referring to discussions between well-meaning, non-rascist people here. The POC mentions something race-related, and maybe adds how it makes them feel. The white person has one of two responses – defensiveness, or wanting to know how to fix the problem. But as in a marital ‘discussion,’ that’s not the point. Well-meaning POCs do not want you to personally feel bad, they want you to acknowledge their feelings. They want to not have to feel crazy for feeling that there is something not right about race relations, and they are not blaming you personally for the fact that there is not something right. They WILL have reason to blame you if you invalidate their feeling that something is wrong by assuring them that nothing is wrong, or telling them about all the bad things that happen to white people, or telling them that the problem is them and all their damn anger.
The well-meaning, non-rascist white person feels exasperated. I am not racist, I do not do or say racist things, and every time I talk about racial issues I just ending up feeling bad. So OKAY POC, tell me what I should be doing to fix this. And if you don’t have a specific thing that you want me personally to do, then you don’t have the right to feel bad. Do you get the husband-wife comparison here? The POC does not want you to fix it, the POC doesn’t know how to fix it, but a good start would be an acknowledgement from both white people and POCs that things aren’t so great as they are. And, white people don’t have to feel guilty in order to acknowledge that things are harder in many ways for POC, and that white people (not me) made them that way. It sucks, and it’s not my fault. But I think POCs want white people to acknowledge that it sucks.
Errr, I feel that was incomplete, but I am running out of steam there.
FOR PARENTS
I thought this article was really interesting, and revealing not only in terms of the parenting sense, but also in terms of how white adults view race. White people seem to think that the ultimate race-relations nirvana is a world in which everything is colorblind, in which nobody sees race, or thinks about it. This is unattainable on its face, and would not necessarily be the best thing anyway. As the article rightly mentions, minorities have something that white people envy – their ethnic identity is something positive in their lives, part of their sense of family, community, self. White people might think this is unfair – wait, I thought you wanted us to be colorblind. Isn’t it racist of you to live in an ethnic community, and have an ethnic church?
But, as far as I can tell, I don’t think that should be the goal. The goal should be to not identify groups as superior to one another, to not be able to predict income or education or health according to the color of one’s skin, and to be able to be recognized for who we are (including skin color), without any baggage. In case I am not being clear, let me give this example. I gave a presentation to my lab group and included a couple of pictures of our half-asian daughter at the end. A lab-mate said afterwards (in the presence of an Indonesian) that he thought Abby looked really Asian, but he didn’t think he should say that since he was white. He (like the children in this article) thought that the way to racial harmony is to NOT NOTICE PEOPLE’S RACE. I told him that it’s a fact that she is half-Asian, and in fact her mother would be delighted to hear that someone thinks she looks Asian. Now, if he said that she looked like a dirty Asian, that would have been another story.
So, my take home from this is that many white people have come a long way in terms of what we pass on to our children. By our positive behaviors, we are not giving them dirty words to fling at school, etc. BUT THAT ISN’T ENOUGH. If we are instead teaching them that race is something unfortunate to notice and speak about, like a disability, then they will have a whole different set of problems.
Errr, what should we be teaching them then? Well, I don’t really know yet. As you guys have all mentioned, modeling behaviors is the best way to pass lessons on. I think the biggest way forward would be to actually live in multicultural communities and have friends with different backgrounds, racial and otherwise. Then, a discussion of race is not an awkward formal thing, but an outgrowth of our experiences.
I don’t know what the right age is either for this type of discussion, of course you’ve got to go by what’s right for your kid. But certainly, pretending that they don’t notice skin color (and that that is a good thing) is clearly not the way to go. They are noticing it, and they will always use it to form groups, and make fun of each other. So, it’s up to us to help them figure out what to think about it.
Sorry for the awkward phrasing, I don’t write many complete sentences in English these days.
That was very interesting and helpful, Dan. I will have to make sure John reads your comment, since you’re speaking his language. I guess I need to read the books suggested here. My sense of frustration comes more from the mental exhaustion of parenting Miss Isabel than anything. It’s like, gee, if I forgot to raise her as NOT A RACIST, what 10 million other things have I forgotten to do while I was expending all my energy trying not to throw her out a window?
Hey Terri, I just wanted to add one more thing – I hope you don’t get the impression that I think I have all the answers, or all people of color have all the answers, and I/we know exactly how to raise anti-racist kids – so here’s how, silly white people! EVERYONE harbors some racial prejudices, and I know I do, too – some of them I’ve identified, others I’m sure will be shown to me over time – and EVERYONE finds this stuff hard to talk about, with friends, with kids, whoever. I’m also concerned about how to raise Abby with as few racial hangups and issues and prejudices as possible. I’m sure I won’t do a perfect job.
The only difference between you and me is that, as the parent of a mixed race child, I know I’ll HAVE to talk to her about it, because even if I didn’t bring it up, she would – most likely at a youngish age.
In response to requests:
Before the film: “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh
“Mirrors of Privelege” film:
Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAljja0vi2M
Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOVJ6QwFmDI
Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-E4aqOs1_0
Part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsylE79Hm30
Part 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQEjWybFhac
Also, a wonderful cartoon by Barry Deutsch.
————————–
Terri wrote: I guess I need to read the books suggested here.
If I may, I’d like to heartily recommend Beverly Daniel Tatum’s Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race. I found Part III, about development of white identity and forging a positive white identity, especially helpful. :)
The one I previously mentioned, 40 Ways to Raise a Nonracist Child by French and Mathias, has the added bonus of being very short.
I talked with Sarah some about this article this evening– she was a feminist studies major, which actually includes a fair number of courses about racism, etc. She agreed that she had always and only heard (and observed) that children do not see or notice race, but have to be taught to assign it meaning. So, anecdotally, I’m not the only white person who thought this. I really think all those parents who pulled out of the study did so because they did not want to give their children a consciousness of race they didn’t have before.
Terri,
I think it’s fair for you and other parents to be concerned about the age-appropriateness of whatever message is being communicated. As Cat mentions below, certainly kids ‘notice’ race, they just don’t know its cultural meaning and history. So, my feeling about the parents who pulled out of the study depends on what the videos and discussion sheets were like. I get the impression that they were normal kids shows featuriing minority characters, not programs educating children on our fraught racial history. So, if the discussion points were something like ‘Did you notice how people who look different from us are nice and can be our friends’, then I think the decision to pull them out would betray the view that being evolved means avoiding pointing out color at all. If the discussion points were something like ‘Here are all the ways that minorities have been oppressed by white people throughout our nation’s history’, then certainly I don’t think that’s an age-appropriate way to talk about race, and the parents would be right to pull the children out of the study.
Of course though, I think gradually talking with children about what racial differences mean, and gradually introducing some of the negative history, is important, if only to avoid the situation related in the Newsweek article:
“Then came Martin Luther King Jr. Day at school, two months before his fifth birthday. Luke walked out of preschool that Friday before the weekend and started pointing at everyone, proudly announcing, “That guy comes from Africa. And she comes from Africa, too!” It was embarrassing how loudly he did this. “People with brown skin are from Africa,” he’d repeat. He had not been taught the names for races—he had not heard the term “black” and he called us “people with pinkish-whitish skin.” He named every kid in his schoolroom with brown skin, which was about half his class.
My son’s eagerness was revealing. It was obvious this was something he’d been wondering about for a while. He was relieved to have been finally given the key. Skin color was a sign of ancestral roots.
Over the next year, we started to overhear one of his white friends talking about the color of their skin. They still didn’t know what to call their skin, so they used the phrase “skin like ours.” And this notion of ours versus theirs started to take on a meaning of its own. As these kids searched for their identities, skin color had become salient.
Soon, I overheard this particular white boy telling my son, “Parents don’t like us to talk about our skin, so don’t let them hear you.”
I didn’t read the article as castigating white adults (or adults in general) for thinking that children do not see or notice race. There are perfectly valid reasons why people might think this, and it’s a commonly held view. To me the take away point was that if a parent’s desire is to raise kids who are committed to equality, assuming they are colorblind and need no cues from you on how to make sense of racial diversity in the world around them is ultimately counterproductive.
Kids absolutely notice racial difference, from a very young age. They may not initially ascribe any meaning to it, but they do pick up on the fact that race is very meaningful to adults and society in general. In the absence of information from adults on how to think about race, they will come up with their own explanations of what it means, because they know it means *something*. Add to that the fact that we are constantly surrounded by cues on how to think about race – from books, TV, music, etc. – and you end up with a situation where kids are getting most of their information on race from the culture and almost none at home. It’s totally understandable in such a scenario that kids would pick up ideas on other racial groups that their parents would find appalling if they were consciously articulated – but of course, they wouldn’t be in a family where adults avoid talking about race explicitly and kids know that race is not a topic to be discussed.
I wonder if this notion of kids being colorblind is easier to believe in white families. Minority kids in mostly white neighborhoods are very conscious of being different from everyone else from a very young age, so it makes sense that they would ask more questions about what it means and feel the need to talk about it more (and that their parents, especially if they grew up under similar circumstances, would feel the need to talk to them about it).
I’m black and my husband is white. Our daughter is not even 9 months old, but I’m certain she’s noticed that my husband and I look different from each other. She will eventually notice she looks different from both of us. She will eventually notice that most other kids have parents who look like each other, and look like them. She will notice that our family is different and she will have questions about it. We don’t have a choice but to talk about race with her at some point, and I expect that it will be an ongoing conversation, as she learns more about the world. Most American families with nonwhite members don’t have the luxury of NOT talking about race.
Personally my experience has been that kids are far from colorblind. My family moved to the US when I was 8, from a country that is majority black. I clearly remember that by the age of 10 I would regularly daydream about being white and blonde. Obviously my parents didn’t teach me to think like that (in fact, they almost never talked to us about race). I just picked up on the fact that being white and being blonde seemed to be considered better, and I wanted to fit in.
There was also the time when I was watching Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? with my then 8 year old cousin. She was confused by the fact that it depicted a black-white interracial couple because she thought that “brown people could only marry brown people and white people could only marry white people.” When I pointed out that she knew an Asian-white interracial couple, she responded, “Oh, but Asian’s just the same as white.” Obviously her parents didn’t teach her this. She just cobbled it together from what she observed.
Last example – I remember reading an article in the NYT on interracial adoption which included a story about a white woman with a black daughter, probably 8 or 9 years old. When the mom showed her daughter the cards their friends sent when they adoption came through, the girl burst into tears and asked if she was supposed to be white, because all of the cards depicted a white child.
she had always and only heard (and observed) that children do not see or notice race, but have to be taught to assign it meaning.
Biologically speaking, humanity is not divided into different races. We are all the same species, and there are no subspecies. Phenotypic variety (skin color, hair texture, etc.) exists in our species in a continuous spectrum without breaks and divisions.
The idea of different human “races” is a social construct. We humans have imposed lines where, biologically speaking, none exist, creating ideological categories of people called “races.” Our cultures have, furthermore, imbued these artificial categories with a variety of meanings which are perpetuated, applied, and transmitted in myriad ways (both consciously/intentionally and unconsciously/unintentionally).
(Before I continue, it’s important to clarify a point that I think some of us white people badly misunderstand. Just because race is not a biological reality does not mean it isn’t a reality. Saying that race is a social construct absolutely does not not not mean that race is something negligible, something that we can simply ignore without very real and frankly devastating consequences for everyone. People can say all they want that “race shouldn’t matter,” but it does.)
How is all this relevant to what Sarah heard?
I think any reasonable person must acknowledge that children, like adults, notice phenotypic differences between people. For example, my niece can see that my skin is lighter than her mother’s skin. She can see that my hair is darker than her uncle’s hair. It is no more “surprising” that she can see this than that she can distinguish a red block from a yellow block. (Even if she were not sighted, she could feel the difference between her uncle’s curly hair and her mother’s straight hair.)
Since any reasonable person must admit this, it seems to me that anyone who claims “children do not see or notice race” must really be saying something like “Noticing phenotypic differences is not strictly equivalent to noticing race. The social construct of racial categories must be learned and imposed on the phenotypic differences in order for race to be noticed.” (Sarah seems to imply as much with the phrase “[children] have to be taught to assign it meaning.”)
In the abstract, I see no problem with this claim.
The problem enters here: [perhaps] those parents who pulled out of the study did so because they did not want to give their children a consciousness of race they didn’t have before.
The fatal flaw in this plan is that Pandora’s box has already been opened. There can be no return to some golden era before the concept of race and all its consequences existed. No modern culture, especially here in the United States, is uninfected, and no one is immune. It’s deeply imbedded in the unconscious minds, thoughts and beliefs, words, and actions of every person. It’s given expression in the social mores, systems and structures, and other cultural artifacts we’ve inherited and created.
Nikki wrote: Why would we expect our children to grow up free of racial prejudice, unburdened by our country’s troubled history of race relations, able to discuss the issue with any degree of comfort whatsoever, if we go out of our way to avoid all meaningful conversations about race?
I couldn’t agree more. No child who lives in the real world can possibly be shielded from the concept of race and its consequences. It’s far too late for that. Racial messages are ubiquitous, and they’re transmitted, as I said above, in myriad ways (both consciously/intentionally and unconsciously/unintentionally). Children begin to pick them up much earlier than we might like.
We’re going to have to play with the hand we’ve been dealt. We can’t return to a golden era before the concept of race and its consequences, but we can shape a new future. We can’t ignore the problem, we’re going to have to be proactive. This has to include talking with children about race.
Here’s another annoying long-winded comment from me, which I will probably expand into a proper blog entry at some point…
I thought I should clarify why I used such a dramatic description – “huge, gaping void in our education and development” – because, for me personally, and for many other nonwhite children I would imagine, it was an ENORMOUS shock to move from the safety and acceptance of our families (where of course race was not an issue, in terms of how much our parents loved or respected us) to the wider world of school, church, community, etc. where that was not always the case. The reason I wish my parents had talked to me about race earlier than kindergarten was because that shock was so hard on me. Like Tope, I began wishing desperately for blond hair and blue eyes the instant I realized that was what all the other girls in my kindergarten class looked like. It was a hard thing, to be five years old and so painfully conscious of looking different.
And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t noticed already that I looked different from my parents. We had talked about that, but the conversation basically ended with “it’s because you’re adopted.” Our discussions about it never went any further – and, at ages 3-5, I was pretty precocious and curious, and probably could have done well with more information. If my parents had talked to me more about it, given some expectation of what school might be like, even had some sample conversations ready to go over with me (“if you’re asked about how you look, you can say this or that”), I wouldn’t have been walking totally blind into the lion’s den.
My parents did an excellent job making sure I understood what adoption was, what it meant, what had happened with mine (not that they knew much about my birth family, and might not have told me even if they did know more. For instance, Dad knew my name at birth was Susan, but never thought to mention it to me). As a result of these conversations, I was always able to talk about being adopted with my classmates and all the people who asked questions about it. But we never talked about the racial aspect, because, to my parents, it seemed unimportant. Of course it was not unimportant to me. I was okay with being adopted. It took years and years (till college, maybe? though by high school I was *more* comfortable with it, if not entirely) to be “okay” being Asian.
So, why should white kids care, you may ask? Isn’t it bad enough that nonwhite children should be made so aware of being a minority, even before they can understand our nation’s troubled (to put it nicely) racial history? I think children of all colors can only benefit from trying to understand what others’ lives are like – NOT just the food they eat or the music they listen to, but their actual *experiences* living in this society. Without that understanding, most of their relationships with nonwhite people are bound to be missing…something crucial. And nonwhite people shouldn’t have to feel as though they have to hide these experiences (some positive, some negative) from their friends and the people they care about. (Too many of us DO feel that way – because when we try to talk about this, we’ve had even some of our closest friends or colleagues get defensive, and try to blame people of color for the way things are, or just demand “Well what can we do about it?”)
I’ll probably have more later, or maybe I’ll post a follow-up entry…
Also, everybody, I really like this post:
http://mixedraceamerica.blogspot.com/2009/08/teaching-not-preaching.html
Jennifer at Mixed Race America is one of my favorite bloggers. Obviously, she is much, much, MUCH better at talking and writing about all of this than I am. I apologize for not being her.
Fantastic!
Among other things, Tope wrote: To me the take away point was that if a parent’s desire is to raise kids who are committed to equality, assuming they are colorblind and need no cues from you on how to make sense of racial diversity in the world around them is ultimately counterproductive.
Great post, Tope! Thanks. :)
I got to hear more about this while driving home today, the author was on NPR for an interview:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112810112
Apparently there will be more tomorrow, with Moms discussing the story.
Some followup from NPR:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/tellmemore/2009/09/explaining_history_with_baggag.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112843791
Related: “Talking Race” in School
http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-36-fall-2009/talking-race
For some teachers, putting race into context is a challenge because they don’t understand the situation, or can’t explain it. White people often lack experience in talking about race, largely because they don’t feel marginalized because of race. They fear saying something ignorant or offensive.
“Whites usually don’t have the tools to be able to talk about it very knowledgeably,” explained Sleeter. “We grow up learning that it’s impolite to talk about race.”
White people often don’t even know where to begin the conversation, Sleeter says. “[The reaction is,] ‘What am I supposed to be talking about? What should I even be saying, that’s not going to be totally impolite?’”
Even for teachers of color, labeling an incident or comment as racist is sometimes hard to do….
Thanks for linking to this, Cat. I’d spotted it on one of the blogs I read but hadn’t had a chance to read it yet.
The dialogue about race should start in the classroom — the teacher-prep classroom, that is. Preservice teachers should be exploring multiculturalism and discussing ways to honor diversity in their future classrooms.
But in many cases, Kelly said, the coursework isn’t giving preservice teachers the tools to speak about race. Even when future teachers take courses on diversity and multiculturalism, Kelly said, those courses don’t take the critical approach to race that future teachers truly need.
“Food, folklore and festivals are not the same as an analysis of race in America,” Kelly argued.
(if you’ll forgive the bad writing) this is very, VERY true. People often focus on studying the food, music, or culture of another ethnic group, and it’s a great thing. But multicultural appreciation is one thing, and understanding/fighting racism is another. People also seem to think that liking the food or dance of another culture earns them a “free pass,” aka an excuse not to think or talk at all about race issues – “clearly, I CAN’T be a racist, because I like authentic Mexican food and listen to Chinese folk music!” And this person is right, he or she is most likely NOT a racist, but that can’t be where the whole conversation about race begins and ends.
This is interesting. When I taught high school English, there was all this debate about whether or not “To Kill A Mockingbird” was considered a “multicultural” text. LOL. I mean, I know I was teaching at the turn of the century, it was THIS century! If that’s multicultural, then so is Huck Finn. There is, after all, a black character.
I chose to start my American lit students with Frederick Douglass’ narrative and use that as a jumping off point for the discussion of race. It’s an obvious choice because it is largely about slavery and so kids expect you to talk about it. But it’s a good one because Douglass makes such a compelling case for the dignity of human beings. It goes beyond the “we all know it’s bad” of America’s slaveholding history and gets into the question of how does one rebuild from that past.
My students were also exposed to the Harlem Renaissance which is full of more overt commentary about race in America. I tried to work in a lot of women authors and Native American and Asian American texts, but in a survey of American lit, it can feel a little tokenistic to be bopping from Douglass to Chopin to Amy Tan and then back to an essay by Gary Soto.
You have so much cover in required courses it’s almost better to develop a strong elective track. When I was in high school, I had an English teacher that made us read Ellison’s “Invisible Man.” My whole class was white (as were many of the “advanced” courses, don’t get me started on that), and I think maybe 2 of us could even understand a morsel of that book’s meaning and significance. It was totally over our heads and without any other points of view offered in our class and without proper shepherding from our teacher, any chance of discussion and discovery fell flat.
Still, our high school had several electives on race or specific “ethnic” literature and those created opportunities to get deeper into these conversations. I had a great African American literature class taught by an enthusiastic white guy who’d minored in the subject at Chapel Hill. There were only two of us white kids in the class (everyone else was black), but we managed to have some great discussion anyway.
One of the things that disturbed me was thinking about the original article and this teaching article together: So neither parents NOR teachers are equipping kids to understand, discuss, and address racial issues? All their ideas about race will come from sources like peers, TV, movies, music, and so forth? Of course, I can think of many good influences kids might happen to stumble across. But, unfortunately, I can also think of many, many bad ones.
Nikki, you are so right about the need to address race as a lived reality in America, beyond mere appreciation of cultural artifacts like music and art.
Cayce, I appreciate your thoughts on the challenges of bringing real exploration of racial issues into literature classes. I wish I’d had more opportunities, as a student, to dig deeper into these issues in my classes, from history to art to science to foreign language classes. We didn’t even have the content, much less the teachers.