Teach your child to be anti-racist
As parents, we must all raise the next generation to be purposefully anti-racist. Mothers of Black children everywhere need non-minority parents to help us in our fight to save our sons
Exclusive | 4 min read | American writer, US English spellings
When my son was four, I told him the story of his namesake. Midway through Noah’s Ark, my son looked at me and asked, ‘Mommy, was Noah Black or white?’ The question was surprising, coming from such a young child but I seized the opportunity to show Noah that he could be a hero too, just like the Noah in the story. ‘His skin was brown, baby,’ I answered confidently. ‘Just like you.’
I’ll never forget the disappointment in Noah’s face. ‘Oh no,’ he said quietly. ‘I wish he was white.’
I held back tears as Noah explained that a child at daycare had been spouting racial prejudice for weeks, telling my little son that Black men were ‘bad’. I blamed myself for failing to realize this had been going on, but also realized that at such a young age, my son was already internalizing racism and negative attitudes about his race.
That night, my husband Joshua and I vowed to purposefully combat the effects of racism in our young child. It has been four years since that incident. This past March, I heard Noah speak of Black culture with confidence and pride for the first time after attending a Black Lives Matter rally.
My husband and I have done a lot of work to repair the damage done to Noah’s self-esteem. We’re very proud of his progress, but my fear of persistent racism outweighs the joy of this accomplishment.
Turbulent times
Since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, there has been a marked increase in public displays of racism and xenophobia, exposing America’s deeply rooted racism, especially against Black Americans.
When Democratic candidate Joe Biden was proclaimed the winner of the U.S. Presidential election last week, it felt as though the world breathed a collective sigh of relief, hopeful that his victory and the historic appointment of Vice President elect, Kamala Harris, were indicative of a new era of diversity and tolerance.
Harris, a woman of South Asian and Jamaican heritage, is the first woman AND the first person of color to be elected Vice President of the United States. The results of this election appear to be in favor of equality but it’s worth noting that the final vote was uncomfortably close, with the Democratic ticket winning by a very slim majority.
As a Black American, I spent two days after our election filled with anxiety and disappointment at a country that still is willing to accept bigotry and excuse racism. Even former First Lady, Michelle Obama, took to Twitter to emphasize the fact that America’s road to true equality is still a work in progress.
It will certainly be a long road, but I am tired now of being afraid of my country because I don’t trust our social systems to keep my two young sons or my husband alive. I am afraid of how other people's children will treat mine because of their skin color.
I am afraid for my family’s survival but most of all, I am afraid of men whose mothers raised them to hate us for being Black.
There is so much work to be done to combat racism, a lot of which starts at home.
As parents, we must all raise the next generation to be purposefully anti-racist. Mothers of Black children everywhere need non-minority parents to help us in our fight to save our sons. Here’s what you can do as a parent to fight racism.
Check your privilege
Start by taking the time to examine your privilege. In what ways has your life and the lives of your family members been made easier by factors outside of your control?
When you walk into a room for a job interview, are you worried that your physical appearance might disqualify you? As you research post-pandemic potential travel destinations, is local racism a part of your query? Do you check the diversity make-up of local schools to make sure your child doesn’t feel culturally alienated when applying?
People who aren’t minorities don’t have to address many such issues, but minorities often reconcile these conflicts daily. Your kids need to understand their position in society has been elevated as a consequence of their race, that their voices and opinions will be validated and taken into consideration without question, simply because they present as white.
Grasping this lays the foundation for your children to understand that their peers who are Black or brown may have a different experience than their own, even in the same circumstances. By building their cultural frame of reference, you’re helping your child understand how to be a better ally.
There are wonderful examples in our society of using their privilege to reverse the effects of racism. Use these to have a conversation with your children about what being an ally looks like, and how as a family, you can use your privilege to aid marginalized communities.
Explain what racism is
Explain racism and prejudice to your kids. Not once or twice, but whenever it is relevant, experienced and seen. Prejudice is when someone makes an untrue assumption about another person based on gender, economic background, or religious preferences. Anyone can experience prejudice. Racial prejudice is prejudice based solely on race and can have lifelong ramifications for others.
Think back to the little boy at Noah’s nursery that was taught to believe Black men were ‘bad.’ Now imagine that same boy becomes a working adult with the same ideals and is tasked with hiring new employees. When a resume for someone with a name that sounds African American to him comes across his desk, he tosses the resume in the trash and moves on to the next candidate - racist actions that contribute to the oppression of a person simply because he believed that they were Black.
Make use of resources
I highly recommend reading the bestselling novel, So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, which helps readers have difficult conversations about race. Watch the Netflix documentary 13th by Ava Duvernay to see real-world examples of how systemic racism is still a huge part of the American economy. Stream Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk or the Duvernay-directed When They See Us to see how systemic racism affects minorities as individuals.
Understanding the context will help you be self-aware of your own bias and explain to your kids how to recognize these systems, helping them to start standing up to prejudice and racism.
For younger audiences, age-appropriate literature on race and representation is becoming more accessible every day. The Snowy Day by Jack Ezra Keats and Hair Love by Matthew Cherry are two books filled with positive representations of Black families. The joy represented in these books is not only inspirational, they are subtle vessels that encourage children of all races to appreciate the similarities between themselves and children from other cultural backgrounds.
Here’s a collection of kids' books that address racism and inequality. For pre-teens Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness by Anastasia Higginbotham is an illustrated guide to privilege and equality that can help make a very difficult topic a bit easier to digest for developing minds.
You can even tell your kids about the conversations I’ve had to have with my kids – like the one with Noah at the start of this article. Contextual learning is a powerful weapon against racism.
Heavy conversations
Debate about whether the recent protests and messages of the Black Lives Matter movement are appropriate for young children remain ongoing, with the implication being that children are not mature enough to handle conversations on race.
These talks can be scary, but for millions of Black families they are mandatory. I’ve taught Noah, eight, how to identify prejudice in his peers. I’ve had ‘the talk’ with him, telling him how to safely interact with police. I’ve sadly had to make him acutely aware of how the world perceives him because he has inherited his father’s broad-shouldered physique.
I am terrified that as a child who consistently falls in the top 10% of his class in terms of height and weight, he could easily be mistaken for a much older boy – much like the tragic case of 12-year-old Tamir Rice who was shot dead while playing with a pellet gun in the park. And when my youngest son Marley, three, is old enough, I will have these same conversations again.
In the mean time, as the visibility of racial profiling by police increases, I hide from my boys that my heart races when Joshua goes to see a client in a predominantly white neighborhood. Each time my husband has to wait in the car for a client to arrive, I say a silent prayer that no uninformed or racist neighbors will call the authorities to address the 6ft 2in tall black man with locks who is just doing his job like Michael Hayes.
These conversations are not optional in Black households. If you want to raise a child who is an advocate for change, these talks cannot be optional in yours either. If Elmo can have this conversation, so can you.
LEAD BY EXAMPLE
There are hundreds of ways to combat racism at your fingertips, all you have to do is seek out the wealth of opportunities to help our society be better. Vote in local elections and support political candidates that consider your needs as well as the needs of minorities.
As a mother, naturally, I worry about my husband and my children but my fears as a Black Mother are different than my white counterparts. I am not afraid that my loved ones’ lives will be hard - I am afraid that they will be short. I can teach my child about discrimination, but I need mothers of children who are not minorities to raise their children to understand that my kids are not only worth of equality, they are deserving of it.
To work towards equality, there has never been a better time to revisit the lessons we’ve learned regarding race and privilege over the last four years, so that our society can continue to have positive growth.
Black Lives Still Matter.
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