I’m a 41-year-old white woman married to a 42-year-old white man. We have two children and we benefit from a lot of totally unearned privilege in this world thanks to the color of our skin and the size of our bank account. Our six-year-old son, “Sweetie Bird,” and our baby daughter are automatically set on a course to follow in our footsteps just for being born into our family. It’s our responsibility to make absolutely sure that they understand their privileges and that they share the world with others who have not been dealt such a lucky hand.
I read a lot of articles about being a good ally, where white people go wrong in spite of our best intentions, and the importance of talking to kids about race early and often. I want to do it “right” and my husband and I do our best, every chance we get, to explicitly point out injustice, talk about bias, ask questions, and look for answers. We are not always perfect, or ever for that matter. We miss the mark sometimes, but we keep working at it. Even though I actively educate myself, I’ve noticed there are a lot of to-do lists out there recommending talking to kids about race, but I often find myself wishing for more specifics. I want concrete examples and a script if possible!
Americans are largely socialized to believe we should avoid these sensitive topics and so we are very uncomfortable talking about them. But in avoiding difficult subjects, we create potentially dangerous, even deadly situations for people of color. People of color are already disproportionately policed and profiled in public spaces. Add to those legal injustices, that white people call the police on black adults and even children for little or no reason at all on a regular basis. Once the police are involved, things can and too often do devolve quickly and tragically: Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Philando Castille. Black people are killed by police at alarmingly disproportionate rates compared to whites.
We’ve all seen the headlines primarily about white women calling the police on black people for things white people do everyday without question or worry: cashing a paycheck, barbecuing in a park, using wi-fi in a coffee shop, being a child in a bodega, the list goes on and on… It is our responsibility as white people to stop doing this. Feeling uncomfortable in the presence of people who are not like us is not a reason to call the police. Not being white is NOT a crime. Our discomfort, unfounded fear, and overactive suspicion gets people of color killed.
No, we don’t have to tell our children about the details of all of the heartbreaking tragedies listed above, which is only a small sampling of what happens every day. But it is up to us to exercise better judgement and often, to mind our own business. Live and let live — literally. And we must show our children a better example. Even if you personally are not an expert, you can do this! You can be better and make the world better for your own children and for children of color.
I did not start out super confident — just determined. I’m still not 100% sure about some of the things I tell my son, but it has gotten easier. The good thing is parents can learn with their children. The first explicit conversations I remember having with Sweetie Bird happened during the 2016 elections. He was only three and a half, but quite precocious and always listening to Fab and me getting up in arms over Trump’s scandalous antics.
We didn’t think much of him listening until I got a call from his preschool teacher asking me to make him stop talking about Trump at school. She explained that she agreed with me, but not all of the teachers did. I laughed out loud at the idea that I might possibly give a flying fuck about my small child offending a grown ass adult’s political sensibilities. That was NOT my problem. I also wasn’t buying that other children might be upset, because how many three- and four-year-olds are serious about politics? Mine was the only one in that class and the first amendment applies to him, too, as far as I know.
I told his teacher I was afraid to tell him not to talk about Trump because it might just make him more interested in the topic. In the end I said nothing to Sweetie Bird about it, but I did tell his teacher I was fine with her telling him not to play the “Trump is a bad guy” game he invented out on the playground. Secretly, I had never been prouder. Trump should absolutely be in jail. Even three-year-olds know that.
We started talking about Trump more and more because Sweetie Bird had so many questions every time NPR was on. He knew how upset we were about the election and he wanted to understand. All I could come up with to meet him on his four-year-old level at the time of the inauguration was the language of inclusion and exclusion. Hillary Clinton wanted to include more people and Trump was actively excluding people, especially with his travel ban at that moment.
Four-year-olds understand being excluded in social situations and they do not like it. They understand the importance of sharing and what it feels like when others refuse to share. Income, housing, education, and healthcare inequality can be discussed in this way. So, those were the terms we used at that time for most conversations.
Later, when Sweetie Bird had just turned five, we read I Dissent!, a children’s book about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which introduced him to words like prejudice and discrimination. He didn’t understand what it meant to be discriminated against for being a Jew, but we came up with things that did make sense to him.
My son has beautiful, long, blonde hair that usually gets him a lot of compliments, but also the occasional criticism or assumption that he is a girl if his hair is that long and pretty. We discussed the silly idea that all boys should have short hair. We talked about girls we know who have short hair and boys who have long hair. His own grandpa has a ponytail! We thought about whether it’s fair to treat people differently because of their hair, then we expanded into other physical attributes, like skin color.
One of the major no-nos in talking to kids about race today is pushing the idea of “color-blindness.” Yes, it sounds lovely to imagine a world where no one even notices skin color because it matters that little. But, unfortunately, that world is exactly that — imaginary. People of color have very different experiences in the world because of the color of their skin and pretending we don’t see that is not only insulting, it erases their experiences of injustice and inequality and thus, their humanity. So, there’s that. Don’t pretend you are “colorblind” because you’re not.
What we can start talking about with children, very concretely, are the various descriptive words we use to talk about skin color. Our son began noticing that his skin is not “white” at about the age of three. We confirmed his observation and agreed that his skin is more pink or peachy. His friend, who’s skin is darker, is light brown. Later, he noticed the word black doesn’t really describe black people very well either.
- There are many shades of brown and isn’t it strange that we use the word black for all of them?
- Why are so many things labeled “flesh” or “nude” when this really only describes the nude flesh of white people?
- Why do white people often describe people as a “black man” or an “Asian woman” make no mention of skin color when they are describing a white person?
In Pre-K, when he was five, Sweetie Bird became fascinated by Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis. We spoke in simple terms about the fight for civil rights and that MLK had been killed because he wanted equal rights for people of color.
This year, he is in kindergarten and we have gone a little deeper. We recently visited the Center for Civil and Human Rights here in Atlanta. We looked at some of MLK’s papers and artifacts from his life. We looked at displays explaining the meaning of segregation in the Jim Crow era. We learned about non-violent resistance and sat at a lunch counter listening to some of the abuse the lunch counter protesters endured. To be clear, I listened first, explained to him what he would hear, and gave him the choice to listen or not. He did and then we discussed it. We watched a short film about the freedom riders and saw a large display of all the riders’ mugshots plastered on the body of a bus. A six-year-old doesn’t have the attention span to study every inch of a museum like that, but I was really happy with what he was able to glean from the things we did focus on.
Just the other day, I was chatting with a friend and mentioned something about our efforts to teach Sweetie Bird about racism. She admitted to me that she has not attempted to talk to her kids, one older and one a bit younger than my son, about race or discrimination. She asked me if I didn’t think it was too scary or too adult for kids to understand. I explained that we have been having the conversations for a long time and that we simplify as necessary. We have talked about the Holocaust, but not every single gory, inhumane detail. We have talked about police brutality and watched a powerful video of black parents explaining it to their children. We have talked about racial profiling by asking our son how often he has seen us pulled over or harassed by police compared to what the parents in the video described. Kids are good at comparing and contrasting.
To be honest, Sweetie Bird directs most of the conversations. If we say a word he doesn’t know, he asks and we explain to the best of our abilities. We look for resources on Google and YouTube. We don’t know it all and this stuff is not easy! We are not required to have all the answers, just to make a good faith effort to find out.
Are we talking to him about things that are above his maturity level? Maybe. But consider this: parents of brown kids have no choice but to have these conversations to keep their kids safe. My white son might feel sad to learn about the injustices happening to people all around him, but I don’t have to worry about him experiencing those injustices. Some of my friends do worry about it day in and day out. No child should be expected to be mature enough to deal with such terrifying realities.
The good news? You get more than one chance! You’re only human and kids won’t hold you to every word you said. They move on. You can start over as many times as necessary. You can go back and correct yourself. You can admit you were wrong, or that you didn’t quite accomplish what you had hoped. You can learn together and talk about it often. There are resources out there if you look for them. Arm yourself with information and humility and then take that first step. I promise, you will not regret it.
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