Thursday open thread

18 Responses to Thursday open thread

1. CJsDaddy says:

   August 7, 2008 at 7:25 am

   Good idea!

   I have been struggling recently as I work toward being an anti-racist parent with how to deal with racist attitudes and comments among my family and closest friends.
   Recently, a group of friends were emailing eachother to plan an event that includesd some joking around about the state of one guy’s house. Then some disparaging and supposedly funny remarks came out toward Mexicans.

   My question is this: What’s the best approach here? How does one fight the expected return argument of political correctness and over-sensitivity?
2. Tami Winfrey Harris says:

   August 7, 2008 at 8:47 am

   I’d be interested to hear how folks deal with situations like this, too, CJsDaddy. I find myself picking my battles and performing anti-racist triage. That sometimes means letting the least offensive race-biased comments go, which, of course, feeds into the notion that racism is only the big, overt things. It’s tough, though, with friends and family.

   I think the key is to respond to in the spirit that the biased statement was made. Meet an offhand biased remark with an offhand corrective rebuttal. Tackle a joke with a joke. Respond to a racist tirade with a serious talking to (and end the relationship).
3. Chris says:

   August 7, 2008 at 8:53 am

   Oh my gosh, you read my mind! I gave my daughter a Latina baby doll for Christmas and my dad and sister started making racist comments. At least they knew better than to let the kids hear. I read somewhere (maybe on this blog) that you can try humor (“Did you hear that one at the last KKK meeting?”). I think next time I’ll say something like “Did you know M (my husband) is from Mexico?” Clearly he is not, but maybe it will make them think “Well, what if it was true? Would I have said it then?”

   Also, there is an argument to be made that so what if they think you are over-sensitive? My brother once got mad at me for that reason when I told him not to make homophobic jokes in front of me, but that was 15 years ago, and he never does it now, and I think he actually is less homophobic.

   My question is this: we live in a very very white part of the country. So my son knows mostly white people. After school one day, he said “I don’t like to sit next to the dark brown kids.” (At age 4.) Most of my friends think color blind is th way to go, so I basically feel like I have no one to learn from, no role models, no support in non-color blind, anti-racist parenting. I’m doing the best I can, reading this blog, Racism Review and books and getting books for my kids and so on, but it is hard! It’s hard when your friends dismiss your concerns (one friend said “yeah, your son is a racist” as though that is the most ridiculous thing in the world, and it is true, if your only conception of racism is the KKK, clearly he is not and will never be that, but what about framing and systemic racism, what about all the subtleties and so on? I tried to explain this to my friend, but she said her 7 year old daughter doesn’t notice color, which I don’t believe. The preschool teacher also said she saw no one acting upon color so I shouldn’t be worried.) So my question is whether anyone has strategies for white color blindness that happen in those spur of the moment conversations? Also, my son will start Kindergarten, so I’m also wondering how/when I should talk about the idea to his teacher (the idea that color blindness is nonsense and I don’t want my son learning it).
4. Atena says:

   August 7, 2008 at 4:13 pm

   Teaching Tolerance has a really good program to address bigoted comments called, ‘Speak Up!’ It offers very practical ways to handle a variety of scenarios of bigotry. Here is a link to the page:

   http://www.tolerance.org/speakup/index.html

   They have handbook you can download for free, as well as a training activity guide. I can’t say enough good things about their resources! I’ve actually given the Speak Up! guide to people and many of them told me that it was helpful to them.
5. Parents Overnight says:

   August 7, 2008 at 6:18 pm

   Hi, what a great resourceful blog/site. I’ve been lurking and reading for a while and I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to get some tips, suggestions, and advice. I get a long with everyone and anyone, race plays no part in my decisions as far as who I befriend or work with. Would my child pick this up from me easily?
6. Tami Winfrey Harris says:

   August 7, 2008 at 8:26 pm

   PO,

   It is great that you embrace other races and have a non-biased view. Parents obviously play a huge role in developing a child’s beliefs about race. But I think it is not enough to simply be unbiased in your behavior toward people of color. Unfortunately, our culture is not unbiased. It strongly favors European-derived heritage and culture. I believe it takes ACTIVE anti-racist parenting to combat the bias toward whiteness that we all (even people of color) learn. Does that make sense?

   Your child may learn from you to treat people of color kindly, but will he or she learn that dark, nappy hair and brown eyes are as beautiful as long, blonde hair and blue eyes? Will your child learn to view a U.S.-born friend of Chinese ancestry as a full American? Will your little one absorb why it it is not okay to “dress up like Indians” for Thanksgiving?

   Chris, this is why your friend’s idea of colorblindness does not work. It ignores the problem, rather than address it. The unspoken message of colorblindness is that race, other than whiteness, is bad and not to be spoken of. That’s not true. There is nothing wrong with my being black and you noticing it. The problem is people who notice my color and make assumptions about my value based on that.
7. Chris says:

   August 7, 2008 at 9:10 pm

   Tami,
   I know–you’re exactly right. The problem is, in my experience, 95-99% of white people think colorblindness is THE answer to racism. I wish there were a book called “Why Colorblindness Doesn’t Work” or something like that. It would have a long list. The first part would be how it doesn’t work in the sense that you can’t realistically achieve it in this society as it currently is, and the second part would be how it doesn’t work in the sense that even if you manifested absolutely no evidence of noticing race, you’d still be doing damage. (Example of first part: how 3 year olds categorize dolls as good/bad based on color. Or that study where identical resumes don’t get identical rates of interviews depending on whether the name is perceived as white or black. Example of second part: the argument that if you are colorblind in a dominantly white setting, white gets defined as normal, and children of color can be treated as problems for not acting “normal”.) It could have a pull out poster to hang up…Does anything like this exist?
8. TeachersHaveRaces2 says:

   August 8, 2008 at 12:21 am

   Children need to be protected from white “closet” racists on the internet. These racists blame Asians and blacks for affirmative action. These white racists believe that Asian and black children have lower I.Q.’s than whites.
9. Liza says:

   August 8, 2008 at 6:03 am

   Hear, Hear, Tami. First, it’s nice to see some others coming out to comment – that’s the best way to learn, is to put your thoughts out there and get some feedback. It’s especially good when, as Chris writes, there aren’t many POC’s around you or anti-racists around you to have engaging conversations.

   One of the pieces of advice that I give that gets a lot of controversy out there is “actively seek to diversify the professionals in your life.” After we talked about this in the Anti-Racist Parent telemseminar, that was the advice that had the most people not agreeing with us. However, it’s a very valid and important practice (I’ll blog more about that later).

   Tami’s right (of course!) – Colorblindness isn’t a good thing. I know people like to say it and are well meaning in their efforts to “judge others by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin”, but being “colorblind” is not what Dr. MLK, Jr meant. In our society, it’s important to be very aware of color. Unfortunately, in our country, color is very much a part of how people interact – and mostly in a subconscious level. So, the challenge is to bring it to consciousness — allow yourself to realize just how unfair this society is. Because, by being colorblind, we refuse to see how color affects people in our society.

   Like this idea, Tami! looking forward to more open thread Thursdays!
10. Tami Winfrey Harris says:

    August 8, 2008 at 6:10 am

    Chris,

    You’re right. Hmmm…I’m going to see what I can dig up. Anyone else know of resources that address the foolishness of “color blindness?”

    TeachersHaveRaces2,

    I notice that you have made similar comments in several different threads. I approved this one. This site is dedicated to teaching parents of all colors how to combat racism. Most everyone here is aware of the wealth of biased negative views against children of color. I’m not sure what your point is and how it relates to the content of the posts you have commented in.

    Can you clarify to help us all understand?
11. dawn says:

    August 8, 2008 at 8:32 am

    i think this is a marvelous idea.
12. k.c.w. says:

    August 9, 2008 at 11:46 am

    A few days after the “breaking story” but still applicable. What are your thoughts of the Loreal ad with the lightened Beyonce. Yes Loreal denied it but to my admittedly non-professional eyes, it obviously is lighter than her skin AND I think I’m most offended that Beyonce didn’t respond, at least not in any mainstream media. Offended, but not surprised.
13. Tami Winfrey Harris says:

    August 9, 2008 at 5:43 pm

    kcw,

    The whole affair was not surprising. The idea that white, Eurocentric features are most beautiful is accepted in the beauty industry as it is most everywhere else in our culture. And it is common to watch women of color with star potential become whiter and blonder as they rise up the entertainment ladder (or possibly so they can rise up the entertainment ladder). Think Alicia Keys, Jessica Alba, Mary J. Blige and, yes, Beyonce. What bugs me about Beyonce is that I sense that she and her family buy into the notion and thus are not about to speak out and try to change things. I think Bey and her handlers made a conscious decision to take her from this:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/23679943@N06/2255458925/

    …to this:

    http://www.mtv.com/news/photos/d/destiny_retro_050613/51720690.jpg
14. Blackbird Pie says:

    August 10, 2008 at 11:09 am

    Atena- thank you for that link, it is very useful!
15. oterhog says:

    August 10, 2008 at 9:23 pm

    My son is four years old and describes African American people as “brown”. Recently we visited his grandmother who showed him pictures of his African American cousins and described them as “black” to him. This confused him and got me thinking about how I’m gonna help him understand now and in the coming years that “black” and “white” are social constructs and not accurate descriptions of what people look like? I know this is a huge question with no simple answer. I just don’t even know where to start with all of this and I want to do the right thing. I have a lot of internalized white supremacy that I have to un-learn and I want to help my son avoid this as much as possible.
16. Rosa says:

    August 11, 2008 at 3:21 pm

    Oterhog, with my 3 year old, we talk about how black & white are groups you belong to, like churches, families or neighborhoods, and everybody belongs to a bunch of different groups at the same time. I don’t know how that’s going to fly when he goes to school, but it’s working right now.
17. Parker says:

    August 12, 2008 at 3:40 pm

    I am fairly new to this site and am so grateful to have found it! I am also curious to see what resources/books others have found on the ‘why color-blind doesn’t work’ question. As a white woman who grew up in rural and very white America, I am all-too-familiar with this faulty line of reasoning. I think of it as another way that folks of my culture (WASPs) tend to avoid things that make them uncomfortable – poof! If we ignore it, it will go away! Not. But through the years I have come to appreciate that being color blind is not only impossible, it’s undesirable – diversity is good! How boring would it be if we were all the same?! As Tami said, the problem isn’t noticing someone’s skin color (or accent or gender or height or ability), the problem is making generalizations and assumptions about them based on that one piece of information. I have had some success with this line of reasoning when trying to explain to my well-meaning relatives why the idea of being color blind is problematic to me… Look forward to continuing the conversation! Thanks for the opportunity of this open thread.
18. Ashleigh says:

    August 14, 2008 at 9:13 am

    I live and work in central columbus, ohio. I have noticed and was shocked at racial comments to me here. Comments such as “White people need to burn in hell” prompted by simply walking down the street. I think your discussions need to acknowledge that this is a bigger issue that white people showing racism. From where i am, its actually the other way round at the moment.