Has the common thinking around race changed over the last 10-15 years?
March 8, 2017 5:53 PM Subscribe
I thought the commonly accepted idea around race was that it existed as a bigoted construct and while racism is oppressive and breeds injustice, we shouldn't really accept racist groupings as the way we think of others.
Then a friend posted this article from the NAIS which suggests racial socialization and seeks racial justice.
I checked "race" on Wikipedia to make sure I wasn't taking crazy pills, and it seems the entry there agrees that the essentialism of race isn't commonly accepted. So can you kind people help me with some interpretation of what the NAIS article is suggesting we teach kids about race? Am I helping fight racism by teaching my daughters to think of themselves as Whites?
Aside: I understand that there is a Black culture and identity and here in Canada I think I have seen what I would call Indian identity, which makes me think there is no easy yes/no answer on racial identity.
I checked "race" on Wikipedia to make sure I wasn't taking crazy pills, and it seems the entry there agrees that the essentialism of race isn't commonly accepted. So can you kind people help me with some interpretation of what the NAIS article is suggesting we teach kids about race? Am I helping fight racism by teaching my daughters to think of themselves as Whites?
Aside: I understand that there is a Black culture and identity and here in Canada I think I have seen what I would call Indian identity, which makes me think there is no easy yes/no answer on racial identity.
Interesting! I think the main point of this article is valid: "Racial socialization for white youth, then, is the process by which they learn what it means to be white in a society that currently values whiteness." It's mostly saying that white children need to learn how to talk about race, and need to understand that they are part of discussions about race, and that everybody has different experiences.
The part about "establishing a positive white identity" was the part that initially got a strong reaction from me, and I think from you too. I think the article is saying that children should be able to participate in conversations about topics like privilege without feeling ashamed or defensive, and they should be able to understand where the idea of "whiteness" comes from and how they fit in. The article "suggests that we have to create a fourth way to be white: the antiracist white identity. Schools need to create spaces in which students can identify as white and simultaneously work against racism." But I think talking about "white identity" is a fraught way of making this point. I also wish this article didn't just take the whole idea of "whiteness" as a given, and that it acknowledged that referring to people as "white" erases their actual ethnic identity and sets up an opposition of "whites" (normal, default, mainstream) versus everybody else.
posted by chickenmagazine at 6:19 PM on March 8, 2017 [6 favorites]
The part about "establishing a positive white identity" was the part that initially got a strong reaction from me, and I think from you too. I think the article is saying that children should be able to participate in conversations about topics like privilege without feeling ashamed or defensive, and they should be able to understand where the idea of "whiteness" comes from and how they fit in. The article "suggests that we have to create a fourth way to be white: the antiracist white identity. Schools need to create spaces in which students can identify as white and simultaneously work against racism." But I think talking about "white identity" is a fraught way of making this point. I also wish this article didn't just take the whole idea of "whiteness" as a given, and that it acknowledged that referring to people as "white" erases their actual ethnic identity and sets up an opposition of "whites" (normal, default, mainstream) versus everybody else.
posted by chickenmagazine at 6:19 PM on March 8, 2017 [6 favorites]
Saying that races don't exist as biological or genetic identities is not the same as saying races don't exist. They exist as social constructs. We have to deal with them, white people as much as brown and black people. Recognize them is the first step.
posted by alms at 6:31 PM on March 8, 2017 [28 favorites]
posted by alms at 6:31 PM on March 8, 2017 [28 favorites]
From my own experience I think race has always been thought of as something that exists and is real for POC and that the people who have been saying race is just a social construct were primarily white people trying to be colour blind, which they can be because they're white. I would say that any shift from this colour blind ideal is still a pretty recent one, which can be seen in any of the fpps on white privilege we've had over the last year or so. Even in the linked article, the papers cited are pretty recent.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:37 PM on March 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:37 PM on March 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
Am I helping fight racism by teaching my daughters to think of themselves as Whites?
I think the idea is that by the time they grow up, they will understand their whiteness as a fact regardless of anything you do or don't do. You have the opportunity to present to them an understanding of what this means that is different from what the culture at large will instill in them if you do nothing actively.
If I had kids I wouldn't lecture, just talk now and then in the way you do to young kids about how we are perceived by others, how our actions affect others, the ways our family is similar to and different from others, how we got to whatever economic and class position we're in and what happened to our ancestors to bring this about. Race comes into all these things naturally if you allow it to.
plus, it is a social construct. but social constructs are real.
posted by queenofbithynia at 7:11 PM on March 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
I think the idea is that by the time they grow up, they will understand their whiteness as a fact regardless of anything you do or don't do. You have the opportunity to present to them an understanding of what this means that is different from what the culture at large will instill in them if you do nothing actively.
If I had kids I wouldn't lecture, just talk now and then in the way you do to young kids about how we are perceived by others, how our actions affect others, the ways our family is similar to and different from others, how we got to whatever economic and class position we're in and what happened to our ancestors to bring this about. Race comes into all these things naturally if you allow it to.
plus, it is a social construct. but social constructs are real.
posted by queenofbithynia at 7:11 PM on March 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
As groups, people do very bad things. It's a normal thing for the brain to categorize things, events and people based upon their actions, past and present and reach conclusions. You're saying - let's please stop listening to our minds and focus on our hearts - we're very far from there - evil still exists and till it ceases to exist, discernment must factor in.
posted by watercarrier at 8:37 PM on March 8, 2017
posted by watercarrier at 8:37 PM on March 8, 2017
This is indeed the current thinking with children -- the book "Nurtureshock" talks about it in one chapter. The background idea is that white Gen Xers and Millenials who are now becoming parents were raised that talking about race is impolite, and it's politer to simply not mention it, and to pretend to be/aspire to be "colorblind." That turns race into a taboo, and that means that instead of learning about race from their parents, white children learn about race from the broader culture, which is absolutely full of racist messages, from the subtle things like advertisements that are all-white, all-the-time (or beauty ads that feature Beyonce, but lighten her skin) to the overt neo-Nazi stuff. And at the same time they learn that they can't ask their parents or teacher about it because it's something so rude their parents and teachers won't discuss it. So by never discussing race with your white children/students, you're condemning those children to a world in which they're learning about race from the background noise of a country (just north of one) where Fox News is the most popular "news" station. The best-case scenario is one where white kids think of whiteness as "normal" or "default." The worst-case scenario is Breitbart.
The goal is to provide white children, from a young age, with the same sorts of tools to talk about race that black children are often actively given through anti-racist education (or by their parents). Instead of insisting race doesn't matter, propagate a message of equality while also helping students to understand the many ways race does matter in American/Canadian society -- and actually the article you linked gives a pretty good list of what sorts of things students should learn, both in terms of information and skills. They don't so much want you to teach your children to think of themselves as white, but to understand what it means to be white as part of understanding how race functions in society and spotting structures of oppression and fighting against racism. And it's clearly a much better idea to be directly and deliberately imparting your anti-racist ethics to your children than hoping they pick it up by the way you don't ever talk about!
As a white parent of children in a majority-minority school district, and a person who served on the school board of that district, this line of educational thought is something I've been aware of for about 10 years now, and I'm enormously supportive and I have seen the good it can do and I am doing my damnedest to do right by my own children ... and yet when I have to do it, I often feel dizzy and get tunnel vision because the taboo I am breaking is so strong. Because I was raised, as basically all white, polite, anti-racist people my age were, that talking about race and making it overt is Step One Towards Being Racist, and that the non-racist thing to do is to Not Notice. It is an absolutely awful feeling and so I definitely understand your confusion and concern, and I've been at this ten years and I still freeze up and get a little dizzy when I'm about to break the taboo, but I just take a breath and plunge onward, because I want my kids to be better than I am, and I want the world to be better than it is now.
Some of the things you do with this, especially with little kids, are really small things, but they make a big difference. Like in my kindergartener's classroom, his teacher has a big bin of "skin" colored crayons, for every shade of "skin" imaginable. Kindergarteners spend a lot of time drawing self-portraits ("me doing my favorite activity" "me on earth day" "me with my family"), so during the first couple of weeks the kids experiment with all the different crayons and find one they like to draw themselves, and then they can keep that "skin" color in their pencil box for whenever they're drawing pictures of themselves. And they can keep different ones for their mom, dad, siblings, grandparents, whomever is important to them, so they can draw their family the way they look. (Or they can draw them all green. This is kindergarten.) And it is a big deal; when I visited the classroom a few weeks ago just about every kid wanted to show me "the crayon I usually pick to draw myself" and they could all tell me their best friend's preferred crayon as well. And when they're making construction-paper people and have to cut out heads, the heads aren't JUST white paper; she'll have an array of white, tan, brown, beige, pink, etc., so kids can pick different colors. This teacher's been teaching for like 35 years and these are techniques she had to deliberately learn, but it's definitely not what she learned when she was in school, and not what was done when she was starting out. (There's a lot more, that's just off the top of my head because I visited at the end of art time.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:32 PM on March 8, 2017 [59 favorites]
The goal is to provide white children, from a young age, with the same sorts of tools to talk about race that black children are often actively given through anti-racist education (or by their parents). Instead of insisting race doesn't matter, propagate a message of equality while also helping students to understand the many ways race does matter in American/Canadian society -- and actually the article you linked gives a pretty good list of what sorts of things students should learn, both in terms of information and skills. They don't so much want you to teach your children to think of themselves as white, but to understand what it means to be white as part of understanding how race functions in society and spotting structures of oppression and fighting against racism. And it's clearly a much better idea to be directly and deliberately imparting your anti-racist ethics to your children than hoping they pick it up by the way you don't ever talk about!
As a white parent of children in a majority-minority school district, and a person who served on the school board of that district, this line of educational thought is something I've been aware of for about 10 years now, and I'm enormously supportive and I have seen the good it can do and I am doing my damnedest to do right by my own children ... and yet when I have to do it, I often feel dizzy and get tunnel vision because the taboo I am breaking is so strong. Because I was raised, as basically all white, polite, anti-racist people my age were, that talking about race and making it overt is Step One Towards Being Racist, and that the non-racist thing to do is to Not Notice. It is an absolutely awful feeling and so I definitely understand your confusion and concern, and I've been at this ten years and I still freeze up and get a little dizzy when I'm about to break the taboo, but I just take a breath and plunge onward, because I want my kids to be better than I am, and I want the world to be better than it is now.
Some of the things you do with this, especially with little kids, are really small things, but they make a big difference. Like in my kindergartener's classroom, his teacher has a big bin of "skin" colored crayons, for every shade of "skin" imaginable. Kindergarteners spend a lot of time drawing self-portraits ("me doing my favorite activity" "me on earth day" "me with my family"), so during the first couple of weeks the kids experiment with all the different crayons and find one they like to draw themselves, and then they can keep that "skin" color in their pencil box for whenever they're drawing pictures of themselves. And they can keep different ones for their mom, dad, siblings, grandparents, whomever is important to them, so they can draw their family the way they look. (Or they can draw them all green. This is kindergarten.) And it is a big deal; when I visited the classroom a few weeks ago just about every kid wanted to show me "the crayon I usually pick to draw myself" and they could all tell me their best friend's preferred crayon as well. And when they're making construction-paper people and have to cut out heads, the heads aren't JUST white paper; she'll have an array of white, tan, brown, beige, pink, etc., so kids can pick different colors. This teacher's been teaching for like 35 years and these are techniques she had to deliberately learn, but it's definitely not what she learned when she was in school, and not what was done when she was starting out. (There's a lot more, that's just off the top of my head because I visited at the end of art time.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:32 PM on March 8, 2017 [59 favorites]
As far as whether common thinking around race has changed over the last 10-15 years, a running theme on The Colbert Report (ran from 2005-2014) was that the host explicitly lampooned the "colorblind" approach Eyebrows McGee mentions as naïve and portrayed it as something which might well enable racism.
I feel as though, in my case at least, that helped to move the starting point of my thinking to be that simply vowing opposition to racism isn't enough and a somewhat sophisticated analysis of racism as a phenomenon is necessary to adequately approach the subject.
posted by XMLicious at 10:31 PM on March 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
I feel as though, in my case at least, that helped to move the starting point of my thinking to be that simply vowing opposition to racism isn't enough and a somewhat sophisticated analysis of racism as a phenomenon is necessary to adequately approach the subject.
posted by XMLicious at 10:31 PM on March 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks all for your responses, especially that fantastic schoolroom example from Eyebrows McGee.
So people would think that I am going down the road of "colorblindness" if I say that my children should not think about race but ethnic differences? That certain ethnic groups have privileges, have oppressed others, etc.
posted by hala mass at 4:32 AM on March 9, 2017
So people would think that I am going down the road of "colorblindness" if I say that my children should not think about race but ethnic differences? That certain ethnic groups have privileges, have oppressed others, etc.
posted by hala mass at 4:32 AM on March 9, 2017
Here's another way to think about it. Without white self-awareness, someone can have a world view like this:
A similar thing happens with gender, whereby our culture and language make maleness the normative human. So "just a person" = male. To get a female you have to have "person + femaleness". Thus the "human experience" and "human history" are defined as "male experience" and "male history", whereas women do this other thing, which isn't what normal humans do. Needless to say, viewing the world this way creates all sorts of problems.
posted by alms at 5:55 AM on March 9, 2017 [19 favorites]
White person = normal human (no race, just human)When you teach people that whiteness is a racial category just like the others, you get a world view more like this:
African American = human + black
Mexican = human + brown
etc...
White person = human + whiteThis is a huge shift, and puts everyone's identity at the same level. Unfortunately, many (most?) white Americans have the first world view. Being white isn't a thing, it's just the normal human condition. But those are weird people -- brown, black etc -- they aren't normal. They're humans plus they have this other thing going on.
African American = human + black
Mexican American = human + brown
etc.
A similar thing happens with gender, whereby our culture and language make maleness the normative human. So "just a person" = male. To get a female you have to have "person + femaleness". Thus the "human experience" and "human history" are defined as "male experience" and "male history", whereas women do this other thing, which isn't what normal humans do. Needless to say, viewing the world this way creates all sorts of problems.
posted by alms at 5:55 AM on March 9, 2017 [19 favorites]
So people would think that I am going down the road of "colorblindness" if I say that my children should not think about race but ethnic differences? That certain ethnic groups have privileges, have oppressed others, etc.
I am in the US, which I know is obviously not Canada, but I would suspect that what I have to say is at least somewhat applicable to the Canadian situation.
One problem with focusing exclusively on ethnic differences instead of race is that (in the US, at least) ethnic groups have passed in and out of racial classifications. For example, in US history, ethnic groups such as the Germans, the Italians, the Irish and many Eastern European groups (Poles, Czechs, etc.) have all at one point been treated as not white and were the target of prejudice. The Irish were termed things like "Negroes turned inside out" and were often subjected to a lot of the same invective that, say, Mexican immigrants are subject to today.
However, in today's society, all of these ethnic groups have been essentially "made white" -- with the exception of some far-right loonies, the average American would consider someone of largely German, Irish, Italian or Polish descent (or some combination thereof) to be just "white" and -- crucially -- that someone will accrue all the experiences and privileges that a "white" person has in society. Rudy Giuliani is the grandson of Italian immigrants, and would probably be identified fairly easily as an Italian American just by name, but no one would seriously say that Giuliani is "not white." (This would not always have been the case.)
I'm not saying that the differences between Irish Americans and Italian Americans (to take a specific example) are completely washed away. There are still St. Patrick's Day parades, there are still Italian food traditions handed down, etc. But aside from these areas, in places where race really (and unfortunately) still makes a difference -- in housing bias, police brutality, subconscious employment bias, perceptions of interracial relationships/marriage, etc. -- it is the perceived race, not ethnic identity, that is the difference at heart.
Also, I'd like to say, I think that for a race-related question, this thread has gone very well so far.
posted by andrewesque at 6:26 AM on March 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
I am in the US, which I know is obviously not Canada, but I would suspect that what I have to say is at least somewhat applicable to the Canadian situation.
One problem with focusing exclusively on ethnic differences instead of race is that (in the US, at least) ethnic groups have passed in and out of racial classifications. For example, in US history, ethnic groups such as the Germans, the Italians, the Irish and many Eastern European groups (Poles, Czechs, etc.) have all at one point been treated as not white and were the target of prejudice. The Irish were termed things like "Negroes turned inside out" and were often subjected to a lot of the same invective that, say, Mexican immigrants are subject to today.
However, in today's society, all of these ethnic groups have been essentially "made white" -- with the exception of some far-right loonies, the average American would consider someone of largely German, Irish, Italian or Polish descent (or some combination thereof) to be just "white" and -- crucially -- that someone will accrue all the experiences and privileges that a "white" person has in society. Rudy Giuliani is the grandson of Italian immigrants, and would probably be identified fairly easily as an Italian American just by name, but no one would seriously say that Giuliani is "not white." (This would not always have been the case.)
I'm not saying that the differences between Irish Americans and Italian Americans (to take a specific example) are completely washed away. There are still St. Patrick's Day parades, there are still Italian food traditions handed down, etc. But aside from these areas, in places where race really (and unfortunately) still makes a difference -- in housing bias, police brutality, subconscious employment bias, perceptions of interracial relationships/marriage, etc. -- it is the perceived race, not ethnic identity, that is the difference at heart.
Also, I'd like to say, I think that for a race-related question, this thread has gone very well so far.
posted by andrewesque at 6:26 AM on March 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
So people would think that I am going down the road of "colorblindness" if I say that my children should not think about race but ethnic differences? That certain ethnic groups have privileges, have oppressed others, etc.
I think they would wonder why you weren't just talking about race. This is both because of the reasons andrewesque mentions above but also because the people who often say "you shouldn't think about race" are the people who either
1. benefit from this situation because of institutionalized racism and so have very little reason to deeply probe into it, or
2. lack a sophisticated understanding about (or are in denial about) the huge impact of racism in this society
I am not saying you are either. But the people who say those sorts of things often are. And you'd be better off not being associated with those lines of inquiry if you're trying to have a conscious approach to all of this.
So, while many educated people today understand many of the more sophisticated nuances of race (things like there being more genetic difference within populations than between them) this was not always the case. In 1880s New York, for example, you were charged more for rent if you were black and lived in a tenement than if you were white. But you also might be charged less than other immigrants because of perception of those racial tendencies. So while there were people from many cultures who fell under this broad racial category, the thing that bound them together was their race and their perception of it by the people from the privileged/dominant class at the time. And this had an effect on all the people in that racial class, almost regardless of ethnicity.
posted by jessamyn at 7:06 AM on March 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
I think they would wonder why you weren't just talking about race. This is both because of the reasons andrewesque mentions above but also because the people who often say "you shouldn't think about race" are the people who either
1. benefit from this situation because of institutionalized racism and so have very little reason to deeply probe into it, or
2. lack a sophisticated understanding about (or are in denial about) the huge impact of racism in this society
I am not saying you are either. But the people who say those sorts of things often are. And you'd be better off not being associated with those lines of inquiry if you're trying to have a conscious approach to all of this.
So, while many educated people today understand many of the more sophisticated nuances of race (things like there being more genetic difference within populations than between them) this was not always the case. In 1880s New York, for example, you were charged more for rent if you were black and lived in a tenement than if you were white. But you also might be charged less than other immigrants because of perception of those racial tendencies. So while there were people from many cultures who fell under this broad racial category, the thing that bound them together was their race and their perception of it by the people from the privileged/dominant class at the time. And this had an effect on all the people in that racial class, almost regardless of ethnicity.
posted by jessamyn at 7:06 AM on March 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
From my own experience I think race has always been thought of as something that exists and is real for POC and that the people who have been saying race is just a social construct were primarily white people trying to be colour blind, which they can be because they're white.
My experience is that "race is a social construct" means that race is not a meaningful biological category -- two people with black skin or two people with white skin can (and often do) have more genetic differences than a person with black skin and a person with white skin.
I believe it was a phrase used to refute the pseudoscience of bestsellers like The Bell Curve (and hundreds of years of similar arguments) that black people are -- on a biological, genetic level -- inferior to white people. Or the similarly racist belief that black people are intellectually inferior but physically superior (stronger, faster, better at sports and dancing, impervious to pain, etc).
So (as I have always understood it, and heard it used) in the phrase "race is a social construct" "social" specifically means "not biological" and "construct" means "not based on science" and also a "a thing people made up." At the same time it recognizes that "race" is very much a real category socially meaning that it has a real impact culturally.
posted by mrmurbles at 9:56 AM on March 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
My experience is that "race is a social construct" means that race is not a meaningful biological category -- two people with black skin or two people with white skin can (and often do) have more genetic differences than a person with black skin and a person with white skin.
I believe it was a phrase used to refute the pseudoscience of bestsellers like The Bell Curve (and hundreds of years of similar arguments) that black people are -- on a biological, genetic level -- inferior to white people. Or the similarly racist belief that black people are intellectually inferior but physically superior (stronger, faster, better at sports and dancing, impervious to pain, etc).
So (as I have always understood it, and heard it used) in the phrase "race is a social construct" "social" specifically means "not biological" and "construct" means "not based on science" and also a "a thing people made up." At the same time it recognizes that "race" is very much a real category socially meaning that it has a real impact culturally.
posted by mrmurbles at 9:56 AM on March 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
by the time they grow up, they will understand their whiteness as a fact
By the time they grow up, aspects of that social construct (such as who is and isn't perceived as "white", assuming that whiteness is still considered the major axis of privilege in their environment) may be different.
Rather than identifying "common thinking" on the subject, it may be more important to help them understand that the groupings that seem pertinent in a particular place and time in are subject to change.
posted by tangerine at 5:47 PM on March 9, 2017
By the time they grow up, aspects of that social construct (such as who is and isn't perceived as "white", assuming that whiteness is still considered the major axis of privilege in their environment) may be different.
Rather than identifying "common thinking" on the subject, it may be more important to help them understand that the groupings that seem pertinent in a particular place and time in are subject to change.
posted by tangerine at 5:47 PM on March 9, 2017
So people would think that I am going down the road of "colorblindness" if I say that my children should not think about race but ethnic differences?
Yes. Your children have visible privilege due to the colour of their skin.
posted by DarlingBri at 7:08 PM on March 9, 2017
Yes. Your children have visible privilege due to the colour of their skin.
posted by DarlingBri at 7:08 PM on March 9, 2017
Best answer: "The other day, a parent was telling me that he'd tried to tell his kindergartener about Martin Luther King, Jr., and that it had backfired because his son went to school and announced "All the kids at this table are white." So he wasn't going to talk about "difficult" topics until his kids were older."
I want to underline the shit out of this because it is a super-common reaction. I have a super-hilarious story from my time on school board about a mixed-race groups of pre-K students, who at that age are not so great at past/present/future, or causation, or keeping stories straight, who learned about Rosa Parks during Black History Month, LOVED the story of her courage, and proceeded to tell their (black) bus driver that from now on all the white kids had to sit in the front and the black kids in the back because Rosa Parks said so. The bus driver was offended, the parents universally mortified, the teacher horrified. Anyway, upshot, bus drivers now get some training on anti-racist curriculum and age-appropriate ways in which it goes horribly, horribly awry. Because it routinely goes horribly, horribly awry (in terms of social politeness) because children have incomplete understanding and get their wires crossed all the time. Part of being anti-racist parents or having an anti-racist school is understanding that and reacting calmly and helping kids straighten out their errors.
I have been the parent in parent-teacher meetings where the teacher said, "So we've been talking about Abraham Lincoln and your child has some questions and I just want you to know he's been asking [wildly inappropriate question about race]" and I have literally said, face flaming, "Can I just sink through the floor now? Would that be okay?" and the teacher has said, "I know. But I want to reassure you that this is very normal at this age and here are some ways to respond ..." It's an enormous relief to be at a school with an anti-racist curriculum and have that support from the school when we run into hiccups, and that understanding from the school staff when kids have awkward or socially-inappropriate questions.
Anyway, too many parents nope out because of these very awkward conversations and therefore nope out of the entire curriculum and decide to simply not discuss it. It's easy to push it off and push it off and push it off until the kids are "old enough to understand" which basically means "old enough to get woke on their own."
It's sort-of like talking to your kids about sex. Nobody LIKES having that conversation and it's always awkward and you always run the risk of your kid going to school the next day and talking to their friends and getting a call from the principal about vaginas, but you'd so much rather your kids learn about it from you, so you can give them good information and transmit your values and ethics. Similarly, it's hard as shit to discuss race (when you're a white parent) but it's so much better that they hear it from you and get good information and get your values and ethics. You don't want them to learn about sex from the raunchiest fifth-graders on the playground and the media; you don't want them to learn about race from the mouthiest fifth-graders and the media either! Because neither thing SHOULD be taboo, but they ARE, and taboos are fertile ground for misinformation and run the risk of the lowest common denominator getting to dominate the conversation.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:00 PM on March 9, 2017 [4 favorites]
I want to underline the shit out of this because it is a super-common reaction. I have a super-hilarious story from my time on school board about a mixed-race groups of pre-K students, who at that age are not so great at past/present/future, or causation, or keeping stories straight, who learned about Rosa Parks during Black History Month, LOVED the story of her courage, and proceeded to tell their (black) bus driver that from now on all the white kids had to sit in the front and the black kids in the back because Rosa Parks said so. The bus driver was offended, the parents universally mortified, the teacher horrified. Anyway, upshot, bus drivers now get some training on anti-racist curriculum and age-appropriate ways in which it goes horribly, horribly awry. Because it routinely goes horribly, horribly awry (in terms of social politeness) because children have incomplete understanding and get their wires crossed all the time. Part of being anti-racist parents or having an anti-racist school is understanding that and reacting calmly and helping kids straighten out their errors.
I have been the parent in parent-teacher meetings where the teacher said, "So we've been talking about Abraham Lincoln and your child has some questions and I just want you to know he's been asking [wildly inappropriate question about race]" and I have literally said, face flaming, "Can I just sink through the floor now? Would that be okay?" and the teacher has said, "I know. But I want to reassure you that this is very normal at this age and here are some ways to respond ..." It's an enormous relief to be at a school with an anti-racist curriculum and have that support from the school when we run into hiccups, and that understanding from the school staff when kids have awkward or socially-inappropriate questions.
Anyway, too many parents nope out because of these very awkward conversations and therefore nope out of the entire curriculum and decide to simply not discuss it. It's easy to push it off and push it off and push it off until the kids are "old enough to understand" which basically means "old enough to get woke on their own."
It's sort-of like talking to your kids about sex. Nobody LIKES having that conversation and it's always awkward and you always run the risk of your kid going to school the next day and talking to their friends and getting a call from the principal about vaginas, but you'd so much rather your kids learn about it from you, so you can give them good information and transmit your values and ethics. Similarly, it's hard as shit to discuss race (when you're a white parent) but it's so much better that they hear it from you and get good information and get your values and ethics. You don't want them to learn about sex from the raunchiest fifth-graders on the playground and the media; you don't want them to learn about race from the mouthiest fifth-graders and the media either! Because neither thing SHOULD be taboo, but they ARE, and taboos are fertile ground for misinformation and run the risk of the lowest common denominator getting to dominate the conversation.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:00 PM on March 9, 2017 [4 favorites]
Ho boy. This is an oldie but maybe a good place to start. Your kids should know that race and racism exist and that they are white and have white privilege.
posted by athirstforsalt at 5:22 AM on March 10, 2017
posted by athirstforsalt at 5:22 AM on March 10, 2017
That certain ethnic groups have privileges, have oppressed others, etc.
A quick example of why that may not work -- my husband and I are both Irish, along with the other ethnicities that we don't share. I'm white, though, and he's a person of color. Race makes a difference, whether or not it should. I think saying that whiteness can give you unearned privilege and safety and working on that is important. Acknowledging that you're white isn't the same thing as celebrating it, which I think it part of what people worry about with the white taboo of mentioning race at all. (And for all that white people don't like to talk about race, they sure do notice it. When talking with other white parents, they're frequently super interested in how my daughter looks, without finding a way to ask what her ethnicity is. If I'm nice enough to say that her dad is Asian-American, the puzzled looks vanish. Other parents of multiracial kids will just talk about it.)
If your kids are in a primarily white school, they may not bring up race with you or make it apparent that they notice it, but they do. If they were in a space where they were in the minority, you would have had a lot more conversations about it by now. My daughter started noticing race and talking with me about it in preschool, when there was only on other Asian kid in her class one year, and the thrill of having another multiracial kid in her class the next. I'm not necessarily great at these conversations, but they are too important to not talk about. It's okay to make mistakes and work at fixing your mistakes.
Some links that might be helpful:
7 Reasons Why ‘Colorblindness’ Contributes to Racism Instead of Solves It
Colorblindness: the New Racism?
What is Whiteness (NYT)
White America, It’s Time to Be Uncomfortable and OK With It (Huff)
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism
Why White People Freak Out When They're Called Out About Race
Let me know if you want more of these, I have a bunch.
posted by Margalo Epps at 12:10 PM on March 12, 2017 [2 favorites]
A quick example of why that may not work -- my husband and I are both Irish, along with the other ethnicities that we don't share. I'm white, though, and he's a person of color. Race makes a difference, whether or not it should. I think saying that whiteness can give you unearned privilege and safety and working on that is important. Acknowledging that you're white isn't the same thing as celebrating it, which I think it part of what people worry about with the white taboo of mentioning race at all. (And for all that white people don't like to talk about race, they sure do notice it. When talking with other white parents, they're frequently super interested in how my daughter looks, without finding a way to ask what her ethnicity is. If I'm nice enough to say that her dad is Asian-American, the puzzled looks vanish. Other parents of multiracial kids will just talk about it.)
If your kids are in a primarily white school, they may not bring up race with you or make it apparent that they notice it, but they do. If they were in a space where they were in the minority, you would have had a lot more conversations about it by now. My daughter started noticing race and talking with me about it in preschool, when there was only on other Asian kid in her class one year, and the thrill of having another multiracial kid in her class the next. I'm not necessarily great at these conversations, but they are too important to not talk about. It's okay to make mistakes and work at fixing your mistakes.
Some links that might be helpful:
7 Reasons Why ‘Colorblindness’ Contributes to Racism Instead of Solves It
Colorblindness: the New Racism?
What is Whiteness (NYT)
White America, It’s Time to Be Uncomfortable and OK With It (Huff)
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism
Why White People Freak Out When They're Called Out About Race
Let me know if you want more of these, I have a bunch.
posted by Margalo Epps at 12:10 PM on March 12, 2017 [2 favorites]
"The other day, a parent was telling me that he'd tried to tell his kindergartener about Martin Luther King, Jr., and that it had backfired because his son went to school and announced "All the kids at this table are white." So he wasn't going to talk about "difficult" topics until his kids were older."
Having tolerance for this stuff is key. My son (who is white) was just about 16 months old when he pointed to a picture of a black baby in a picture book and said the name of one of his black friends from daycare. Starting right around then, we bought several books explicitly and positively addressing differences in skin color and appearance, and we started bringing skin color into conversation casually. When he was around 2 he pointed out that his teacher was "brown all over". His teacher also reported (bemusedly) that he pointed out the skin color of several students and teachers in conversation with her. In the moment, I just replied with "yes, she does have brown skin" when that sort of thing came up. Each time it happened my heart was in my throat, wondering if I was doing it right, wondering whether his (black) teachers might be offended by the way I was handling things, etc. Since then we've gone on to explicitly discuss that some people believe that having darker skin means that you aren't as good, but that those people are confused and incorrect, and that we must not be fooled by such ideas (my son, at least, LOVES the idea of not being able to be fooled). My son has many lovely classmates and teachers of color (various races and ethnicities) and we have pointed out that these people are smart/good/kind/interesting/hard-working/etc (so he can see for himself that the stereotypes are not correct). We have even double-checked with his teachers that nothing is coming out at school that seems objectionable. It's nerve-wracking, though. VERY nerve-wracking.
posted by Cygnet at 4:35 PM on March 12, 2017
Having tolerance for this stuff is key. My son (who is white) was just about 16 months old when he pointed to a picture of a black baby in a picture book and said the name of one of his black friends from daycare. Starting right around then, we bought several books explicitly and positively addressing differences in skin color and appearance, and we started bringing skin color into conversation casually. When he was around 2 he pointed out that his teacher was "brown all over". His teacher also reported (bemusedly) that he pointed out the skin color of several students and teachers in conversation with her. In the moment, I just replied with "yes, she does have brown skin" when that sort of thing came up. Each time it happened my heart was in my throat, wondering if I was doing it right, wondering whether his (black) teachers might be offended by the way I was handling things, etc. Since then we've gone on to explicitly discuss that some people believe that having darker skin means that you aren't as good, but that those people are confused and incorrect, and that we must not be fooled by such ideas (my son, at least, LOVES the idea of not being able to be fooled). My son has many lovely classmates and teachers of color (various races and ethnicities) and we have pointed out that these people are smart/good/kind/interesting/hard-working/etc (so he can see for himself that the stereotypes are not correct). We have even double-checked with his teachers that nothing is coming out at school that seems objectionable. It's nerve-wracking, though. VERY nerve-wracking.
posted by Cygnet at 4:35 PM on March 12, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
This seems pretty clear to me. You will help fight racism if you teach your daughters that they are white and that means they have privileges people of colour do not have.
posted by DarlingBri at 6:17 PM on March 8, 2017 [13 favorites]