Free book: How to be an anti-racist parent

I'm a little confused - is it now bad to "notice" someone's "race"? If you are describing a person and you include skin color in the description, that is racist? Because in my experience, it is those who fancy themselves so "progressive" that LOVE to divide people by "race": creating groups and clubs based on race, making up special holidays based on race, supporting the use of racial preferences for jobs or schooling . . . (Personally, I don't believe race even exists - there are so many other more important factors to differentiate people, why divide up by "races"? What makes a person "black" or "white" anyway? But that is a subject for an entirely different post!)

Kids, on the other hand, do tend to notice differences in appearance, but usually treat "race" no differently than any other factor: hair color, height, or skin color, people come in many varieties but none of it matters to them. That is definately what we should strive for!

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Roger, even more horrifying to me about Little People was how few black men (and women and children) there are in the average set.

Thanks for mentioning this ebook. Antiracistparent.com is one of my very favorite blogs and a great read for thinking parents of any color.

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Great points, Michelle.

Roger, how would you have preferred Jared to describe the doll to you? He had to use some sort of description, so you would know which he was referring to. So, would it have been preferable to say he was the one with brown eyes? If the doll wore glasses, could Jared have used that as a description? If he was made to be an old man doll, wouldn't you feel that Jared was discriminating on the basis of age if he would have used "old" as the descriptive term?

Seriously, I am very curious how you would have preferred for Jared to describe the missing doll. I don't think there is one description that wouldn't somehow "call out" some trait about the doll.

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I'm with the previous posters...while colors like 'black' and 'white' aren't acurate descibers of most actual skin tones, they are the commonly used words for african americans and caucasions. I would never take offense if someone described me by saying that I'm white, and I wouldn't think twice about refering to someone as black. This is just another distinguishing trait...like my height, my glasses, the color shirt I am wearing.

What would you rather we use? I know that prejudice still exists, but I really feel like we have all evolved enough as a society to be able to call 'em like we see 'em.

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God Roger, you're always having such strong reactions to things. A couple weeks ago it was the extreme over reaction at the temporary tattoo, and now you talk about being HORRIFIED that your child might refer to a plastic doll as 'black'.

It sounds like you're trying to do right by your kids, but maybe you should lighten up.

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Contrary to some of the other commentors, I agree wholeheartedly. As a person of colour, it's depressing sometimes how quickly children can internalize Eurocentricity - and how, unchecked, it can end in adults who are utterly unaware of the privileges they enjoy for being white (that ignorance being, ironically, one of those privileges.)

The point is not that a child might call a toy representation of a black individual "black" - it is that the same child is very unlikely to call a toy representation of a white individual "the white man", because that child has already internalized "white" as default. And while that's not necessarily a problem when it stems from the child's family all being white or the town he or she lives in being predominantly white, it can soon become a big problem if anti-racism isn't modelled in the home and that view of identifying as white turns to seeing non-whites as Other.

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Roger, thank you so much for spreading the word about our free e-book!

Michelle - that's a very important point you've raised. People are often quick to say things like "I treat everyone the same. I don't even SEE color!"

Of course, being colorblind is not possible and it should not be your goal. As NAACP Chairman Julian Bond says, colorblindness means being “blind to the consequences of being the wrong color in America today.”

So no, noticing that someone is of a different race than you is not racist.

What is racist is if you then make assumptions about their physical or intellectual abilities based on your perception of their race.

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The little people toy Jared was after consisted of two colors -- a solid black body and a white (or white-ish) head with a few black lines for eyes, mouth and hair.

I have no problem identifying people's skin color or ethnic background -- when it's relevant. To say "my Indian co-worker liked the curry I made" is not racist. The fact that he comes from the country whose cuisine I was trying to duplicate is indeed relevant to the comment. To say "my Indian co-worker bought a new car" very well could be. What possible relevance could his background have on that bit of news? I hope that my kids would not use race as a reason to treat someone differently.

Phil -- I remember and write about things that affect me strongly. How interested would you be in reading something that started out "I was mildly amused when..." or "I had no real feelings one way or the other the time Jared..."? If you really want to hear about the boring stuff that goes on, day in and day out, let me know -- I can write about that too. 8^)

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I took a look at the book. It was pretty good, but I really take issue with the idea that you should "teach" your kids "appropriate" terms for race as soon as possible before they learn them elsewhere. My kids are 2 and 3. I am not in any hurry to call their attention to the idea of different races. When it comes up, we'll discuss terms, but for right now when my daughter announced to her sister "The brown doll is MY doll" I certainly didn't tell her to call it African-American. She calls our friends of color by their names. And she calls the Little People by their names, too, thanks to a very annoying video that came with some of them ... but that's a different rant.

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To my 4 year old everyone is brown, some are just darker brown than others. Mommy is very very light brown, his Dad says I glow in the dark. LOL

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I've been thinking that it's better that my kids refer to people as "brown-skinned". It's what they came up with all by themselves. It drove me crazy when PBS had some Martin Luther King program (I think it was one of the regular cartoons that had an MLK storyline) when my boys were really little. I had no intention of having to go into the ugliness of how people treated/treat others while they were so young. I couldn't see teaching them that the abuse was based on race.

They don't hear racism from us and if they hear it from others, we address it. I'm not going to go looking for it, though.

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I have a correction. Our kids probably do hear racism from us, but they don't hear or see bigotry modeled. I'll go read the book.

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"that the same child is very unlikely to call a toy representation of a white individual "the white man"

I don't that calling it black had anything to do with internalizing that white is the norm. It's that there would be a majority of dolls that were "white" so he would have to use a more detailed description. If there were only one doll wearing black or having "Black" "Skin", it would just make more common sense to use that as the biggest descriptive factor.

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I just wish people would stop putting so much focus on race. Yes, people are different colors. So?

My husband and I are different "colors". My son is somewhere in between. My husband and I also have different hair color and different eye color. Why is the color of skin any different than those traits?

I think it`s quite silly to say that everyone is the same, because we`re not. *Everyone* is different, and it has nothing to do with color.

I can`t imagine anyone being truly color blind until everyone can just take differences in skin color the same way as differences in hair color.
I don`t think many people would take offense at being referred to as "the brunette"...
By pretending differences aren`t there, you give the differences even more power. It`s like the big scar on someone`s face. If you never mention it, and have to pretend it`s not there - it`s the only thing you can see about them. You are forced to constantly worry about whether you might accidentally stare, or slip when talking, etc.

But if it`s just part of them and not "off limits", then it loses it`s power.
Race shouldn`t be off limits. It should just *be*.

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If you freak out every time your kid shows that he notices racial differences, you are NOT going to develop in him a healthy sense of racial equality (or whatever you want to call it). You are going to make him oversensitive and afraid and overly concerned about the differences.

My black friends call themselves black. It is an important part of who they are, partly because it has made a big difference in their family and personal history. These differences affect their life views, and their friendship with me gives me things to think about that I would not have ever thought about otherwise. Thank goodness I'm not afraid to acknowledge that my black friends are black.

From a practical perspective, there have been various times when I've tried to explain whom I'm discussing (physically) without referring to his/her skin color. It gets difficult because other people may not have noticed anything about the person other than that they are black. If I say "the thirtyish woman with black hair" they think of a white person with dark hair. They will never think of a black person unless I come out and say "the black woman." Why? I don't know, but I've noticed it is always true.

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