Such a powerful conversation. One of many perfect nuggets of wisdom:
"If you're going to raise anti-racist kids, you have to be an anti-racist parent. And that doesn't mean that you're not going to make mistakes. It means that you recognize that this is the route that we have to travel for all our humanity. And for equality and equity for all."
This line just kind of blew my mind, because I'd never thought of it this way: "And of course, because so many other places don't have a gun culture, you're less likely to end up dead as a Black person, even if people are being racist towards you."
So I had to say that.
On raising kids, it's so hard! My husband is Indian American and I'm white so our kid obviously has grown up very aware that people have different colors of skin. He is fairly white-presenting in ways that are interesting to consider when we consider how we guess at people's ethnic backgrounds, but he definitely understands himself as brown (as a descriptive fact not as a racial identity). Like, when he does a self-portrait, he's going to make himself about as brown as he is at the height of his summer tan.
We have kind of, sort of introduced the issue of colonization from the beginning of talking to him about race. Language like "when people came here from Europe, they..." and "we often call people Black whose ancestors were from Africa, and European people did x to them," trying to place how we understand race now in some historical context (without implying that it's all history). Visiting Plimoth Patuxet (formerly Plimoth Plantation) also gave us a lot to talk about, and if we had time this summer it would be worth a trip back there. Interestingly I don't think we've talked a ton about the specific colonization of India, though we have included Indian people as a group that people of European descent thought were not as good as them and didn't treat well. So starting when he was probably four he was getting an extremely simplified version of talking about colonization in part because I couldn't come up with a way to talk about it that left that out that I would be happy with. And I think because my husband's skin is as dark as or darker than many, many Black people's skin, and it felt like we needed to talk about why is Daddy not considered Black if that person over there who has lighter skin than him is?
But I'm realizing reading this interview that I'm not sure he's come across a lot of Black women with natural hair and the hair issue in general might be something to bring up sometime. One girl in his class had some kind of twists or braids, I guess.
Wow, that's such a complicated conversation, Laura! I have a little bit in common with you in that I'm Asian, and my husband is white, so we've always talked to our girls about the human tendency to want to categorize things and make everything all neat and tidy, and how that really doesn't work with people. People are more than one thing - they're not just male/female, black/white, good/bad. Sometimes bad people do good things. Sometimes good people do bad things. (The Harry Potter books were helpful with examples for this.) I remember once, I asked my girls what made someone white or black. They said, "Their skin color," but I pushed on it a bit and said, "OK, but what about darker-skinned people who aren't from Africa, like Native Americans? Or us? What are we?" And immediately, they got it.
I also have always tried to drill into my girls that, "The way people look is usually the least interesting thing about them." We sat next to a woman at a concert who had a large birthmark on her face, and my 4 yo asked me about it loudly. I reminded her that she didn't like it when people asked her, "So what are you?" (meaning, what race are you?). I asked her if she noticed anything about the woman besides her face. She said she liked her dress. Perfect! Thankfully, the woman was patient and kind through this whole process. Now that my girls are tween/teens, I also have framed comments about appearance as "basic." We're better and smarter than that. Don't be basic and comment on the same thing that's been commented on a million times before. Be creative and come up with something new to say. Who knew snobbery could be a good way to combat appearance bias? :D
Such a powerful conversation. One of many perfect nuggets of wisdom:
"If you're going to raise anti-racist kids, you have to be an anti-racist parent. And that doesn't mean that you're not going to make mistakes. It means that you recognize that this is the route that we have to travel for all our humanity. And for equality and equity for all."
YES. That was such a helpful and important framing of our goal.
This line just kind of blew my mind, because I'd never thought of it this way: "And of course, because so many other places don't have a gun culture, you're less likely to end up dead as a Black person, even if people are being racist towards you."
So I had to say that.
On raising kids, it's so hard! My husband is Indian American and I'm white so our kid obviously has grown up very aware that people have different colors of skin. He is fairly white-presenting in ways that are interesting to consider when we consider how we guess at people's ethnic backgrounds, but he definitely understands himself as brown (as a descriptive fact not as a racial identity). Like, when he does a self-portrait, he's going to make himself about as brown as he is at the height of his summer tan.
We have kind of, sort of introduced the issue of colonization from the beginning of talking to him about race. Language like "when people came here from Europe, they..." and "we often call people Black whose ancestors were from Africa, and European people did x to them," trying to place how we understand race now in some historical context (without implying that it's all history). Visiting Plimoth Patuxet (formerly Plimoth Plantation) also gave us a lot to talk about, and if we had time this summer it would be worth a trip back there. Interestingly I don't think we've talked a ton about the specific colonization of India, though we have included Indian people as a group that people of European descent thought were not as good as them and didn't treat well. So starting when he was probably four he was getting an extremely simplified version of talking about colonization in part because I couldn't come up with a way to talk about it that left that out that I would be happy with. And I think because my husband's skin is as dark as or darker than many, many Black people's skin, and it felt like we needed to talk about why is Daddy not considered Black if that person over there who has lighter skin than him is?
But I'm realizing reading this interview that I'm not sure he's come across a lot of Black women with natural hair and the hair issue in general might be something to bring up sometime. One girl in his class had some kind of twists or braids, I guess.
Thank you for sharing this -- I learn so much from hearing how other parents are navigating these conversations.
Wow, that's such a complicated conversation, Laura! I have a little bit in common with you in that I'm Asian, and my husband is white, so we've always talked to our girls about the human tendency to want to categorize things and make everything all neat and tidy, and how that really doesn't work with people. People are more than one thing - they're not just male/female, black/white, good/bad. Sometimes bad people do good things. Sometimes good people do bad things. (The Harry Potter books were helpful with examples for this.) I remember once, I asked my girls what made someone white or black. They said, "Their skin color," but I pushed on it a bit and said, "OK, but what about darker-skinned people who aren't from Africa, like Native Americans? Or us? What are we?" And immediately, they got it.
I also have always tried to drill into my girls that, "The way people look is usually the least interesting thing about them." We sat next to a woman at a concert who had a large birthmark on her face, and my 4 yo asked me about it loudly. I reminded her that she didn't like it when people asked her, "So what are you?" (meaning, what race are you?). I asked her if she noticed anything about the woman besides her face. She said she liked her dress. Perfect! Thankfully, the woman was patient and kind through this whole process. Now that my girls are tween/teens, I also have framed comments about appearance as "basic." We're better and smarter than that. Don't be basic and comment on the same thing that's been commented on a million times before. Be creative and come up with something new to say. Who knew snobbery could be a good way to combat appearance bias? :D
Sherrie, LOVE this. Yes to a little snobbery (I would just call it having high standards?)!