by Carmen Van Kerckhove
A few months back, I asked all of you to submit tips and stories for a free e-book I wanted to make available to all readers of Anti-Racist Parent.
I’m happy to announce that it’s finally here!
How to Be an Anti-Racist Parent: Real-Life Parents Share Real-Life Tips features advice from many members of the ARP community, including Shawn Fink, Jae Ran Kim, Nina Birnbaum, Cloudscome, Meera Bowman Johnson, Margie Perscheid, Mike Lee, Susan Lyons-Joell, and Cynthia Bostwick.
Here are a couple excerpts:
You can’t protect your children from racism. You need to be able to show them how ugly racism is, or they won’t be able to recognize it for themselves. If your children are kids of color, they’ll need to have survival skills – verbal, intellectual, and physical. And these survival skills aren’t just about driving while Black or confronting skinheads – your kids will need to know how to survive the racism embedded in our educational, economic, judicial and occupational institutions.
–Jae Ran Kim
Parents need to open up their own horizons and start connecting with people. You can offer all the toys and books in the world to them, but if they never see or get to know another person who isn’t like them than what good are you serving? From day one, I have tried to seek out people of other races to interact with my babies. Lifestyle of the parents is really key … you have to do what you preach. Sometimes, for parents, it means leaving our own comfort zones for the sake of our children.
–Shawn Fink
Please tell your friends and family about the e-book and encourage them to read it. And let me know what you think of it!
Great! I am printing it out and adding it to my bedside reading pile. Thank you.
P.S. Nice layout and design!
Carmen,
I just read through the book. It’s really great! Thank you for putting it together and thank you to all the contributors too!
Thanks for making this available – I think it’s a great resource. I’ve already forwarded it along to a parent who coincidentally has been asking about such a resource.
My first impression after reading it was that I agree with pretty much everything that had been written, and I wonder if that might by symptomatic of some preaching to the choir. Meaning I wonder if the tone of the book appeals more to people who have more insight and experience with consciously anti-racist parenting, than to those parents who haven’t engaged in such conversations and don’t know the jargon (e.g. what does ‘white privilege’ mean to a parent who’s never heard that term before?).
Maybe you could include a glossary of terms, defined as you use them in the e-book (I know defining terms for general use is sticky, but for specific use in the book, it could be helpful)? Since it’s billed as a “how-to” book, I think parents who really don’t know where to start might need a little more background info.
I hope what I’m trying to say makes sense, I feel like I may be coming off as a know-it-all. Sorry if I am – you guys do great work, and I really appreciate it. I just want to share my feedback.
Atena
Hi Atena, that’s a great idea! Thanks so much for your feedback.
This is a first-time experiment of sorts – I’m hoping to put out a new edition every year with fresh stories and advice (next one in January maybe?) so everyone, please do let me know how else we can improve the book.
I’d love to hear more suggestions.
wanted to check but I assume it’s fine if I link in with this from my blog?
Carla
http://chickenbus.livejournal.com
Carla – of course! Everyone please spread the word, the more people who can read the book and join the conversation here, the better!
From the choir: looks good.
Wow, Atena, I also think your comments incredibly constructive, and shake my head in wonder at the parents who might never have heard the term ‘white privilege.’
In all seriousness, would such persons care about this publication?
I ask from this perspective:
1.) The term would, I believe, have instant resonance with non-White persons, both privileged and not-so. While the term may not be used by such persons, I do believe the “aha!” moment sinks in for all of ther term’s concise and precise encapsulating of the moments where one is the unfortunate witness to (or victim of) such privilege.
2.) For Whites educated…while there may be no palpable reason to explore the existence and exercise of this ‘so-called’ privilege, contact with the term would surely exist.
For Whites uneducated (that’s “book learnin’”), is there reason enough to think that with the media exposure, exposure to elders who are first source material about our nation’s recent historical turmoil and unrest, that even such persons in isolated enclaves are untouched by the “national obsession” and out-of-earshot of the terms used to define its characters and characteristics?
Kim: I didn’t hear “white privilege” until a joint sociology/literature college class, with 2 ethnic minority students, 13 white students, and 2 white teachers, all female.
Not only did you hear crickets chirp when the teachers tried to guide them towards the concept that they had privilege, but their first response is why I think a definition of white privilege isn’t intuitive.
Some of the class immediately got defensive: “I’m not privileged, I have to work for school/my parents sacrificed/I don’t live in a big house.” The rest tapped into the ways they weren’t privileged either, i.e. that they were female, and the whole class conversation morphed into a sexism b&c session.
They either didn’t get it or they didn’t want to get it. The teachers tried to get the ethnic minorities to chime in, but the ethnic ratio in that class was pretty much the same for the undergrad school. I think we gave them the token, most obvious racist incidents that had happened to us, but we didn’t share the really painful stuff, and we didn’t share the subtle day to day crap. I didn’t mention the unease I felt accepting a “Negro Scholar” award when I was just as qualified to get a regular old academic one, but couldn’t get a firm answer on why I got one over another. And I didn’t mention the (white) guys who asked “what are you?” before asking me to dance, or the one that walked away when he didn’t like my honest answer.
I think if it had been presented better, the other students may have been less defensive and more constructive.
The part of me that understands the thinking that others *may* have been less defensive had information and discussion taken a different route, thinks that for all of the ways the subject of privilege can be mentioned, anyone who wants to divert attention, or honestly assert the ways in which they are not privileged, can and will do so.
I cannot tell you the first time the concept was introduced to me – but the term was more than likely introduced in college (or perhaps in Essence magazine at about seventeen).
The concept of seeking commonalities between disparate groups demands that one be willing to examine the ways in which we think we are different, and the reasons for that, and the expressions of such difference.
I think the reach for a diversionary tactic (as I hold it to be when anyone over the age of twenty can claim no knowledge of the concept or the term) is a genuine way to avoid thinking about something uncomfortable. That point of discomfort is a shared commonality for those White and non-White, but in discussion of this arena of the intersecting truths of our lives, Whites are most uncomfortable.
I’m not saying any inclusion of such terms in glossary form is superfluous; just wondering who is going to read the pamphlet with earnestness, with interest, and be moved.
Thanks!
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I have never posted a comment on a blog. But after reading the e-book, I was up late last night thinking about the woman being chased around the supermarket by the rude, ignorant woman. My family is transracial, and early on I would answer personal questions from strangers and people I barely knew, thinking that I needed to show pride in our family’s background. But afterwards, I always felt a deep regret, shame and anger. I felt that I had betrayed my family’s, and in particular, my daughter’s privacy. Why do many people feel that families who appear to be different from others are not entitled to common courtesy and respect? No matter how well-intentioned their question may be, my family’s life is none of their business. This is just rude, thoughtless behavior and has nothing to do with my pride in my family. Now I respond calmly with “Why do you ask” and recommend books or websites as their answer is always that they are just curious. Thank you for this site, which I read daily, and for letting me get this off my chest.
I think that people exist that want to learn about anti-racism who may not be familiar with the term “white privilege” and/or it’s actual meaning. I think that I was such a person before I started visiting websites such as this one. I was in my early 20′s and had heard the term, but had an understanding of the term as primarily referring to economics. The word “privilege” is so often used as a euphamism for wealth, and I thought that was also the case with “white privilege”. I thought there was some errant notion being set forth that all or most whites were well-off financially, and after reading up, I began to grasp that “privilege” in this case referred to the advantages, both tangible and non-tangible, of being a white person in our society. I think many people unfamiliar with such jargon will also make the same mistake, and not just purely out of wanting to skirt the uncomfortable issue. I have seen this happen a few times already.
Also, I think you can emerge from college and still not be familiar with this term and it’s correct connotations (I did!). It may have to do with what you study (Mathematics vs. Sociology, for example). So, I also think a glossery of terms is a good idea here.
Thank you for this! Linked it!
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