It's time for a talk about racism

Parents and educators are having unprecedented conversations about race and racism with children. There is no place to hide when television shows are interrupted, emergency robocalls go out to cell phones and cities across the United States are under curfews. Adults struggle to have these conversations with one another, let alone explaining mob psychology and structural racism to a nine-year-old. Parents and teachers may hold differing views about the appropriateness of teaching about issues of race and racism in classrooms. Reserach has shown that children are aware of racial differences and the effects of racism, possibly as early as pre-school. Children echo the biases they hear elsewhere in their lives but have few tools to make sense of long-standing racist institutional structures and practices that deny equity based on a person’s race, as well as culture and religion. It is equally important to use age-appropriate language when discussing racism and police brutality and to allow children to lead the conversation.

Silence = Harm

In the early days of the AIDS crisis, Larry Kramer, founder of ACT-UP, coined the phrase, Silence = Death. Today, in the face of increasing anger, fear and mob-fueled violence, Silence = Harm. If adults are silent about racism, police brutality and mob psychology, children may create their own faulty conclusions and this can fuel fear and anxiety. Conversations about racism should be fact-based but include messages of what is being done to change how some people incorrectly think about race. For the parents of black children, ‘the talk’ includes difficult conversations about how the world will perceive and interact with them because of the color of their skin. The conversations will include the truth about the things they will encounter and experience and how they should react at the moment and also how they will work through the feelings they will have. 

Seeing Race, Religion, Culture and Sex

Adults must model anti-racist behaviors, while also acknowledging that many of us carry biases. Telling children that they should "not see color," can do harm as anyone can hold a bias against someone of another race, religion, culture or sex. We must teach our children to recognize bias in order to move towards a more diverse equity-driven world. As parents and educators, we must explain things that are painful and unfair, especially racism and hate. 

Preparing Children

White, brown and black parents and educators all bare an equal responsibility for preparing children for prejudice and intolerance. Ta-Nehisi Coates, in his book, Between the World and Me, wrote this to his son. “I would have you be a conscious citizen of this terrible and beautiful world.”