Is There a Right Way?
By Anti-Racist Parent columnist Liza Talusan, crossposted from To Loosen the Mind
My husband and I have been trying to make more connections with families in our area – a task somewhat difficult given that so many of our family members live so close to our house. Weekends are usually spent hanging out with the same brothers and/or sisters along with their kids. But, we realize that we and our children need to also get to know more people outside of that small circle — no easy task for introverts like my husband and me.
Recently, we met up with a friend of mine and her husband who have children in the same age bracket as our kids. They are both white, though the mom grew up and was educated outside of the U.S., and have biological white children. We joined them for brunch at their house which gave the kids time to play and the grown ups time to talk.
It was our first real get-together, so we kept the conversation pretty light. We talked about work, where we lived prior to our current location, things we did over the holiday, etc. At one point, though, the discussion touched race, diversity, and our children. Both sets of children go to racially diverse schools. We began talking about how important it was that our children played with kids from all different racial backgrounds and family situations. The mom then said something that surprised me: She said she doesn’t encourage her children to use racial descriptors when referring to people. Yet, on the flipside, she doesn’t discourage it either. She said she pretty much waits and sees how her child will talk about a particular person.
Sharing parenting tactics, my husband brought up how we talk about race in our house. He said, “For us, we always bring up color and encourage our kids to do so. When our kids describe other children in their classes, one of the things they talk about first is whether the child has ‘brown skin’ or ‘peach skin’. There are two boys named Tyler in the school, and when we ask for clarification, we ask if it’s the Tyler-with-the-brown-skin or Tyler-with-the-peach-skin.”
For my husband, who is Puerto Rican and who, too, has worked in predominantly white environments, he has always expressed frustration in the practice of using every single other descriptor about a person other than race, especially when race is the only thing separating someone from all others. So, it’s the “see that guy over there… kind of athletic build .. with the brown hair… with the book bag… standing up straight… with the nice smile….” rather than, “The Puerto Rican guy in that group.”
The mom responded with, “We don’t bring up race because we’re afraid of doing it wrong.”
Her response got me thinking about ways in which parenting and race intersect. In her defense, I definitely didn’t get the “colorblind” vibe from her. Not at all, in fact. She has lived in enough places and knows enough not to live in a whitewashed world. I got the sense that her issue honestly was “I don’t want to mess it up”.
But I got to wondering, how many other diversity saavy parents out there have chosen not to talk obviously about race? Is there a right way? More specificially, is there a right way for white parents? Is there a right way for parents of color? And, is there a right way for parents of transracial adoptive children?
Most parents of color I know always talk about race with their children. We see it as a part of our lives. I remember when my daughter had just turned 2 years old and we were walking along a city street. We walked by a tall Black man, and she said, “Mommy, he has brown skin.”
“Yes,” I responded. “He does.”
That was all. No big deal. I didn’t “shush” her. I didn’t falsly patronize a stranger by saying how beautiful his skin was, how smart the man must be, how nice he is, etc. My daughter’s statement about brown skin was just an observation. She noticed his brown skin in the same way she noticed the red car that we walked by a block ago; color was just a part of her vocabulary.
A few weeks ago, one of my colleagues came to me asking for advice. She said that she picked up her 6-year old son from school and asked about his day, his friends, etc. Her son mentioned a few names of some kids, and then said, “There is also David. But, we don’t like David because we don’t like Black people.”
My friend said she nearly drove off the road in shock.
“What do you mean we don’t like Black people? Where did you hear that? Who told you that??” she screamed, later admitting that she probably shouldn’t have reacted so strongly at that moment. “Oh, never mind. Sorry, Mom, I mean, yes, we like Black people. We like Black people, right, Mom??”
My colleague — again, another person who I consider diversity saavy — realized her reaction had just simply scared him into not talking about it anymore rather than engaging her son in the conversation. Now, when she tries to revisit the conversation — even weeks later — her 6-year old son clams up and says, “I don’t want to talk about it, Mom. I’m so sorry. I like Black people. I really like Black people.” She says she has tried to bring up race and the color of skin in very nonchalant ways since the incident, but her son immediately flies into apology mode and wants to end the discussion. I encouraged her to buy some children’s books that have kids of color in it, etc. Her son likes to hear a bedtime story each night, and so I suggested this might be a good way to introduce the discussion back again without obviously talking about the comments in the car.
My colleague asked questions that many of us hear often: “Where did he learn that? Why did he say ‘we’ don’t like Black people? Am I doing something that is sending him messages about Black people? Is it school? Kids at school? Television that we watch?”
“Probably a little bit of all of the above,” I replied.
Was this the “we-don’t-want-to-do-it-wrong” example that my brunch friend was talking about? Did my colleague do something wrong by reacting as strongly as she did with her son? Or, was she just sending a clear message that the sentiment of “we don’t like Black people” is unacceptable?
So, back to my question — is there a right way to bring up race? Is there a wrong way?
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
Lu wrote:
I think this is such an interesting topic. From my experience, this keeps a lot of people (not just parents) from talking about race.
With us we talk about race with our kids, but we always try to stay calm when we do. We don’t want to get upset about something they say and, like the example above, cause them to clam up. For example, the AWESOME comment from our oldest son that his younger brother smells like Mexican. We were internally freaking out but we calmly asked him what he meant. He thought his brother smelled like taco meat (I couldn’t make this up if I tried). We explained to him why it is problematic to express that as “smelling like mexican.” We haven’t had a similar problem again, and both of our sons seem to feel pretty comfortable asking us questions about race.
I expect as they get older this will get harder, especially given the multi racial and blended (lots of step family members) nature of our family.
Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 9:43 am ¶
Margie wrote:
When I look at the ways my husband and I (both white) have tried to teach our children (both Korean) about race, I usually end up criticizing many of the things we did, which usually seemed like a good idea at the time. The good news is that our kids, who are both in their late teens, have managed to become very race aware, some of which I attribute to our efforts, but much of which they’ve taught themselves living in our diverse community.
I think you just do the very best you can, expect some blips on the radar screen, and most importantly, keep trying.
Loved this post.
Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 10:11 am ¶
Erin wrote:
We are white parents of a white biological son (now 5 years old) and a son who was adopted from Ethiopia (now 2 years old). We also talk about skin color, so that our older son has comfortable words to use. For him, it is a descriptor only of skin color. He will say that he has peach skin like me and Melkamu has brown skin like his firstmama. In fact, the first thing he said when he saw our referral picture was “Why is he that color?” When we explained that people from Ethiopia have brown skin, his response was simply “Oh.” (And then he followed it up with “He’s so cute! Look at his smile!”)
To be honest, though, had we not chosen to adopt transracially, I don’t know that I would have forced myself to find ways to talk about skin color with my kids when they were small. As a white woman, I felt very much like your friend who didn’t want to mess it up. But I knew that we needed to deal with it (in fact, Patrick had been told that Ethiopians have brown skin before our referral came but had apparently forgotten) and am really glad that we did. Children are such sponges that introducing it as simply one way that people look different was perfect for a then-3-year-old. And now he notices skin color, but that’s it. I’m glad he will have that so strongly in his mind so that he has a firm foundation for dealing with racism and racist comments in the future.
We’ve also taken a lot from this website and are trying to model antiracist behavior as best as we can for our kids.
Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 10:48 am ¶
Fusion wrote:
This is a very interesting article and is a question that I ask myself. My wife and I (both white) have 2 sons. One who is Puerto Rican (age 7) and one is Guatemalan (age 2). We always encourage and support open discussion about any topic. But I always wonder what the right answer is when our oldest says, “I want to be white like you” or asks “Why do kids at school say that I am black, when I am brown?” I know the questions will get tougher to answer, but want to make sure we have enough support for him to ask them and for us to help him.
Reading about real world experiences and viewpoints on this website is very helpful to me.
Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 1:39 pm ¶
dianne m wrote:
My 4 yo son has only ever announced skin color when someone had brown skin, & I wasn’t at ease with that. We are multi-ethnic but “look” white, so it wasn’t a matter of “brown like me.”
I asked him what color he thought he & I were and he went from green to gray, though over about a year, he came to “light brown” which is pretty accurate. Though for awhile, he’d say that everyone shold be gray, like us. *sigh*.
I explained that it was OK to notice skin but that we didn’t point and shout out skin color because sometimes people were mean to other people because of their skin, & some people might not like being pointed out. We talked about his various friends and how we wouldn’t want anyone to be mean to them because their skin was different.
I really thought I was doing well until one day, he announced that because Daddy’s skin was pink, and he & I matched, we should be mean to Daddy. SO – epic fail…
I don’t know if there is a right way, really. You never know what little kids will do inside their own heads. My guess is that we should just do our best and not give up.
Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 2:17 pm ¶
Claudia wrote:
Great post!
I feel like the conscientious parent that tries SOMETHING has to be better than what my parents did – which is to assume that I would figure it out some way or another.
The few conversations I’ve had with my child have been facilitated by the books we read together. After we go through “The Skin We Live In” or “Amazing Grace” I try to re-articulate the story in language she can understand (she’s 2 years old) and I’ve chosen at this early stage to emphasize mostly the positive aspects of her brown skin and her heritage. I have looked at a few children’s books that make an effort to explain slavery and I am quite surprised by how well-chosen and careful the language is. Since I’m someone who learns and loves books, it makes sense for me to use this strategy. I know that I’ll have to make a special effort to see that we apply what we are reading to our everyday lives. I’m very anxious and frankly, scared that she will experience some of the hard lessons that I did about race and difference. Thanks goodness for blogs like this one….
Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 3:31 pm ¶
Mandy wrote:
I just found this site today and I am so intrigued. I am a white women and a single mother to three little girls, all by the same man, whom is African American. He is no longer in their lives at all nor is any of his family. The thing is, the oldest is light skinned with auburn hair like me and the two youngest are dark skinned with black hair like their father. My children and I have never had a drawn out conversation about race but my 7 year old recently drew a picture using peach crayons for me oldest daughter and I and brown crayons for her and her younger sister. When I asked her why she looked at me like I had three heads and said “because you and sissy have peach skin and me and Em have brown skin.” Indeed, she is absolutely correct. I think sometimes as parents we read too much into the innocence of what a small child is thinking about members of other races, and can ultimately muddle it up for them. As with anyone I think a child learns best through awareness, learning about different peoples and cultures and THEN being taught no one group is better than another. My nephew once asked my sister why his cousins were brown and I think her answer was genius: She said, well their daddy is black and so God made them brown to represent both of their parents. Kinda like chocolate milk…it’s still milk, it just has something added to it to make it look different, but ultimately it is still milk.
Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 3:57 pm ¶
gigi wrote:
What a great post. I am in a biracial marriage (white/latino) and we have asian children. We talk about race and different color skin, and I think it’s important to do so even if the only thing it accomplishes is making everyone comfortable with the words people use to describe others. The worst thing, imo, is to become an ostrich and pretend words (accurate and not-so-nice ones) don’t exist or will not be used by other kids in our absence. In our experience, it starts in subtle ways, “what’s wrong with your eyes?” at the preschool level and ends with rude, racial remarks by first grade.
I think the wrong way to bring up race would be to use stereotypes, but I also think the “we-don’t-want-to-do-it-wrong” approach leaves too much to the outside world and does not maximize the opportunity to mold (or correct) those views. I give boxes of the multi-cultural crayolas to my children’s classes at the beginning of every year – why? Because to ignore the reality of shades of skin does nothing but hurt those who are in the minority. It’s a deafening silence that I cannot live with.
Our children understand that asian is much more than Chinese or Korean (which they are always assumed to be the one that they are not), and includes people from India and other parts of the world. While they may dislike being called one term, the white world views them as asian and I emphasize that only to show them that they are in great company – around the world, not just limited to their birth country (without trying to minimize the importance of that).
It’s a tight rope and all we can do is keep on talking!
Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 10:05 pm ¶
Deanna Shoss wrote:
I embrace the opportunity to model language about race with my child as a gift. In wanting to teach and guide him, I have to figure out how to articulate difficult concepts, and use language appropriate for a 7 year old to boot. Sometimes I need to think about what he has said, and do research before I can figure out a response. That was particularly true a few weeks ago when Grandpa innocently read Huckleberry Finn to him, and he told me he learned the “N” word. (I blogged about this one at Intercultural Talk–I’d love to hear what other parents think about how I ended up explaining it at least for now.)
Now I’m thinking maybe I’m going overboard–he told me he had a dream a few days ago, and he said there was a big flood and all of the animals and intercultural people (his choice of words) like people from Japan and Africa and places like that were inside our house, and all of the people like us (white) were outside drowning.
It’s a source of angst, but closing the door or not talking about race (and ultimately white privilege and institutional racism) is a sure way to perpetuate it.
Posted 08 Jan 2009 at 12:10 am ¶
K wrote:
I just want to say Thank You for bringing up the idea of inaction-due-to-not-wanting-to-do-it-wrong. That is exactly where I am (completely white family, living in very small, predominantly white town) and why I’ve been reading ARP for a couple of years. When I read this post I thought, “Well, of course–wait–you mean we can SAY that OUT LOUD? On Anti-Racist Parent?” So, thanks for articulating what I was afraid to articulate, here or anywhere.
Posted 08 Jan 2009 at 9:45 am ¶
alex wrote:
Great post I think it really hits some truth. The mother driving down the road and screaming I can relate with. If in her shoes, I think I would have reacted the sameway even thought with in 2 seconds I would have wanted to take it back.
Posted 08 Jan 2009 at 4:06 pm ¶
Jennifer wrote:
I had a pretty mortifying experience in McDonald’s playland just this week. Usually I send the kids in and enjoy my coffee, but for some reason, I was crowded in a tiny area outside the little climbing area with three other parents, two white women, like myself, and a much younger man who appeared to be Native American, making that awkward small talk and reminding our kids not to push the younger ones on the slide. My 3 1/2 year old and came off the slide to loudly announce she didn’t like the “bad boys,” pointing at the man’s two little ones. I corrected her that she shouldn’t call people “bad,” assuming the pushing and shoving was bothering her, and she then corrected me, “not bad boys, Mommy, I said ‘black boys.’” Whew. How to respond? First of all, these boys were fair skinned with dark hair. Maybe she was referring to their ‘black hair?’ On the other hand, where did she learn this term, ‘black boy?’ Her older brother is biracial with an African American birth father, and she has never commented on his skin tone or anyone else’s, that I am aware of. I quickly decided that the only discussion we were going to have in Playland was along the lines of, “If you don’t think you can play nicely with all these kids, you will have to stop playing for now.” I was embarrassed and definitely shared those feelings about not wanting to say the wrong thing. I also wished for a minute that my son was there with me, I guess to be the public face that, “Look, we aren’t racist in our family; see our son is biracial.” That’s hard to admit. It sure isn’t his job to give our family credit with the world. Lots to think about. My daughter’s current favorite book is about a girl who turns pink from eating cupcakes. I definitely need to expand her list of possible skin colors!
Posted 09 Jan 2009 at 6:51 am ¶
dianne m wrote:
Jennifer – Were the boys, by any chance, wearing black shirts?
For the longest time, my kid called anyone the color of the shirt they were wearing. And it confused me for awhile.
In a way, I wish we could have stuck with that concept – we could ALL change colors whenever we wanted! ; )
Posted 09 Jan 2009 at 1:19 pm ¶
Shaping Youth wrote:
Kudos to you all for uncorking this one!
My biggest concern as a society is that the more we carve up the ‘who can say whats, if and when you’re what color’ (from comedians to educators/parents) the more we begin to swim in the shallow end of a very vapid pool.
When conversation devolves into a mute, fear-driven, cautionary ‘curb the tongue’ m.o., it not only leaves our youth and educators at a loss, it replaces authenticity and the potential for profound understanding with a ‘’shhhhh, just bury it’ dodgeball game.
Not a playground (or a planet) I want to live on…
These thoughts extend far beyond race to include dialog on religion, sexuality, politics, you name it, all getting ‘’stuffed and tamped down’ in favor of superficial pleasantries that negate building a foundation of trust and safety by going underground in “we-don’t-want-to-do-it-wrong” style.
Great post, Liza…great comments all!
Amy Jussel
Founder/Exec. Dir.
http://www.ShapingYouth.org
(media & marketing’s impact on kids)
Posted 10 Jan 2009 at 3:25 pm ¶
Jennifer wrote:
Dianne m – actually, the boys weren’t wearing black shirts, but they did have “black” i.e. dark brown hair, and that may have been what she was noticing. That’s a good point.
Posted 10 Jan 2009 at 3:41 pm ¶
Amber wrote:
Personally I am fearful about fully embracing talking about race (good think my lo is still a baby and I get get over it well before she is old enough to realize it) because I am living in such a PC world. And in this world it is hard because I feel like someone is going to get offended if I use the wrong word or say something the wrong way (this is with many things that have gone PC). So in a way I am like the friend who was scared of saying the wrong thing and having people think she is racist or prejudice. But I have realized that I can’t be anti-racist and teach my children to be anti-racist unless I am willing to talk about race openly and honestly and that would mean using describtors to describe a person with out attaching bias or stereotypes to it.
Posted 10 Jan 2009 at 9:49 pm ¶
Karin Katherine wrote:
As someone who is multi racial this really hits home to me. Teaching your children about peach skin and brown skin is really of little consequence when the world sees them as WHITE or BLACK. If they are of mixed heritage and are asked “what are you?” the answer they desire is not a run down of the many ethnicities they may have, but a color—-WHITE OR BLACK. And to me there is the problem. By pointing out the differences you leave more open for how THEY are different from US. Why in a room of white people do you find a million ways to describe people but then it’s the “BLACK girl over there? In my house I teach that people are NOT colors. THINGS are colors. Yes, the CAR is red. The Man is African, African American, Hispanic, Asian etc. Don’t know the country? You can always say, “I don’t really know what country he is from but I would GUESS….”
There are many :”white” people who tan their skin darker than mine but I’m the black one and they are white. It makes no sense.
Posted 11 Jan 2009 at 5:43 am ¶
mbj wrote:
Is it that deep?
What is wrong with talking about the fact that all of us are different from each other (and wonderful and unique). That there are all types of people from all of over the world and here in America, and that we represent a vast range of ethnic groups. It is not that hard.
Acting like there is something to cover up or whisper about when it comes to ethnic differences does more harm than good. Kids see differences because they exist. It’s our job – if we don’t want to raise them with inferiority or superiority complexes – to acknowledge the differences as if they are facts of life, because the are.
Posted 11 Jan 2009 at 9:35 am ¶
mbj wrote:
“they” are. sorry.
Posted 11 Jan 2009 at 9:36 am ¶
Liza wrote:
Thanks for all the thoughtful comments on here. I’ve waited a bit before chiming in, and it’s encouraging to see a number of “first time” visitors and/or posters.
Just to sum up what I’ve read in most of the comments (and consistent with what I believe) is that being afraid of doing it wrong doesn’t excuse not doing it at all. Because so many are afraid of doing it wrong, we must search for the process on how to do it right. I say process rather than answer because there isn’t one right answer (i.m.h.o.). But, I do think the first step is in admitting to ourselves as parents and educators that we *feel* something around this process. If we are afraid of doing it wrong, then arm ourselves with the tools to do it right (again, with “right” meaning a number of different things).
We’ll continue to bring up race in our family and recognize when lessons can be taught. We are a multiracial family as well, with all of us different shades of brown, different textures of hair, and different facial features — even though we are all biologically related in my house. We’ve never made race a *bad* thing. In our house, no question is off limits, no observation is dismissed as silly or childish. My husband and I correct when we need to and we ask more questions than give more answers to our young kids.
I especially loved the comments folks wrote about wondering if they were allowed to admit the fear of doing it wrong at a place like ARP. I found out about ARP when I was exploring similar issues a few years ago with my family, and I’ve learned more here than I could have ever learned through formal schooling, work, or neighborhood. The wealth of knowledge and diversity of experiences and questions are explored in a way that I never see them explored in other ways.
Posted 11 Jan 2009 at 12:45 pm ¶
Jennifer S wrote:
I recently bought my peach daughter a chocolate doll. In doing so, I’ve questioned my own motives… was it because I wanted to force others to accept that it was okay? Or because I wanted to teach her that it is okay to be different?
I hope it wasn’t really either, but instead, that it was just the first of several dolls with different color skin tones and face/eye/nose shapes.
As a peach momma, married to her peach daddy, I also wonder what chocolate people think when they see her with the doll (which she loves beyond words!)
Posted 11 Jan 2009 at 9:10 pm ¶
sadie wrote:
I’m a white mama to a white kid and all 5 of the adults in our household are white. we all also identify as anti-racist and actively pursue that in various ways. I’ve always been pretty blunt with my kid. but I worry aobut doing it wrong, absolutely. I have seen so so many models of how to do it wrong…how to not talk about race, or to talk about it in really problematic ways. i think for white parents of white kids, there aren’t that many models out there. Most of the white parents of white kids that i know are very hesitant to even discuss it.
I try to instill in my 6 year old an understanding that as white folks we have some responsibilities, but without weighing her down with guilt. I talk to her about how some people discrminate based on skin color, but in our family we know that that is wrong and we fight against it. I’ve also talked to her some about colonialism and land theft and genocide…but always simplifying like crazy.
I suspect I’m screwing up in many ways, but I think the biggest mistake that white parents of white kids make is to not say anything abut racism until their kid comes home saying something problematic. We have to be pro-actively anti-racist…and maybe we’ll get enough of it right to be models to parents who come after us. (and/or, they can learn form our mistakes…)
Posted 12 Jan 2009 at 5:59 pm ¶
Gloria wrote:
I am the white mom of two biracial (white/black hispanic) kids. When my son was 3, he used to go through color mixing questions. “Mom, what does red and blue make? What does yellow and blue make?” And it would always end with “What does black and white make?” At the time he was going to a preschool that was 95% African American, so about the third time he asked this question, I asked whether he meant mixing paints or mixing skin color. He answered paints, so I answered, as I had in the past, gray. My son is really into science, so one day as we were reading a book about the human body, I used it as a jumping-off point to talk about skin color. I explained how Mommy’s skin had very little melanin, so it looks peach in color, and people call that white. Daddy’s skin had lots of melanin, so it looks dark brown, and people call that black. Of course, he asked, “So what about me?” I told him he was a mixture of Daddy and Mommy, so he had a medium amount of melanin, which made his skin brown. His response was, “Oh! So black and white makes brown?!?” That was indeed the question he’d been asking all those times, but just didn’t know how to get the answer he was looking for.
Of course, giving him the names for skin colors led to some interesting incidents. We were waiting to get seated at a restaurant and I took my daughter into the bathroom to wash her hands. When we came out, my son said (very loudly), “Mommy, our table’s ready. This white guy is going to show us where it is.” I know that for him he was just describing the man with his newfound descriptor words, but my husband and I had this squirrelly feeling like every head in the restaurant turned toward us. Ah, the fun of watching our kids learn.
Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 1:14 pm ¶
Haitian-American Famiy of Three wrote:
We are just starting do talk about race, and while it can be daunting to talk about with young children I feel its not an option ignore the topic altogether.
Posted 13 Jan 2009 at 5:35 pm ¶
Kristen wrote:
I wrote about this very thing on my blog a while back. We were at church, and a little girl pointed to my three-year-old son, and this was how the dialogue went:
CURIOUS GIRL: Mommy, do you SEE him!?! He’s brown!
MORTIFIED MOM: (clearly embarrassed) Honey, be quiet.
CURIOUS GIRL: Mommy, do you see? Do you see that boy?
MORTIFIED MOM: Sweetie, BE QUIET. Be quiet right now.
CURIOUS GIRL: But mommy, look! He’s brown.
MORTIFIED MOM: (now angrily) If you don’t stop saying that right now, I will give you a spanking.
I totally get where this mom is coming from. I can imagine doing this myself, in another setting. But think for a minute what this interchange communicated to this little girl about “color difference”. What message did this well-meaning mom unintentionally send to her daughter, and to my son, who was watching the whole thing?
Avoiding the topic of race can be one of the biggest mistakes parents make in raising healthy, race-concious children. Shaming, igoring, or avoiding your child’s comments on race can send a strong message: racial difference is SO bad and SO embarrasing that we can’t even talk about it. (Kinda reminds ya of how some families deal with sex, huh?).
So how should someone react? I don’t know the perfect answer, but I do know that we should encourage our kids to share their observations and feelings about race, because silence (or silencing) can be louder than words.
Posted 15 Jan 2009 at 2:38 am ¶
J Diane wrote:
What I would like to hear is how someone feels when a child says something about their skin color. As a caucasian mom to caucasian children, I have never once heard a child say to their mother “that lady is white.” The reason why so many families like mine are “afraid of doing it wrong” is because we don’t want to offend people. Sure, when my daughter has said something at Target about a fellow shopper having brown skin, my response is simple: “yes, she does.” But I don’t know how that shopper feels hearing that — is she offended, is it just a common thing that isn’t even noticed? If I knew that in general people of different ethnicities/skin colors/races weren’t offended by hearing kids call out their traits in a store, I wouldn’t feel nervous every time it happened. I talk to my oldest (5) a lot about how every single human being is different, and how in our own home we all have different shades of skin, and different eyes.
Posted 19 Jan 2009 at 2:54 pm ¶
deesha wrote:
I am black, and I’ve had young white children stare at me, comment on and even touch my skin or my hair (it’s locked), while I’m out shopping. Sometimes the mother (typically) is mortified, but I either smile or chit-chat with the kid, or tell the mom that it’s okay.
Turn about is fair play because my youngest child has in the past made comments declaring every Asian person she sees “Chinese”.
We can all use a little understanding.
I think the best response is a matter of fact one. “Yes, that lady is brown.”
Posted 19 Jan 2009 at 8:32 pm ¶
karen wrote:
gigi: I hope you`re still following this thread alm0st two weeks later. You wrote that the world sees your children as Asian.
I`ve come to learn that words do have different meanings in different regions and at different times. Language evolves. People in your area (their world) may now describe your children as Asian. But people and publications in the UK are unlikely to. To them, Asian typically means South Asian (Indian, Pakistani), not East Asian. Furthmore, people in your region may call your children Asian, but only after mentally translating Oriental into the term they have learned is more accepted.
I`m from Toronto, where Asian has only recently taken on the meaning in common use in the US. Before that, the term was Oriental. In the mid-1990s, my friend returned home from a trip to Europe, and passed on what he had learned from some Americans, who educated him on the offensiveness of Oriental. This was news to my entire social circle (nearly half white, nearly half Chinese, a few black), including my friend`s now-wife and my now-husband who to that day described themselves as Oriental. This distinguished them from South Asians.
In fact, only a few months ago had my husband`s parents, aunts, and uncles heard that Oriental is in disuse. They were and are still using Oriental for themselves. I actually brought it up in reference to our son (Chinese and white). I had very recently read that many people prefer the terms biracial or multiracial to mixed or mixed-race. This was news to me, to my friends, and our families. Again, I think that this is an example of language migrating North from the US but it hasn`t taken hold.
I`ve been listening for biracial and multiracial. Very few people are using them in my area. Mixed is the most common word and sometimes half is used. This is true, regardless of the speaker`s background – almost half of Toronto`s residents are of a visible minority. The majority of the students at the high school where I teach are people of colour. The largest POC group is probably South Asian but this is followed closely by Asian. There are also many Middle Eastern, North African, latino and black or black-Caribbean students. Of course many are multiracial. I hear all the students and staff using mixed and half.
http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/dp-pd/prof/92-591/details/Page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=CD&Code1=3520&Geo2=PR&Code2=35&Data=Count&SearchText=Toronto&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=All&Custom=
Posted 19 Jan 2009 at 9:31 pm ¶
J Diane wrote:
deesha,
Thank you for your feedback. I really appreciate hearing what another person’s experience is in this situation. My hope is that I can encourage my child’s wonder of all of nature, us humans included. Often I’ll talk about how everything natural — people, flowers, trees, even kitty cats — comes in countless forms.
Posted 24 Jan 2009 at 1:06 am ¶
Ruth W wrote:
It’s not hard for me to take the matter-of-fact way I’m used to talking about eye color and hair color and extend it to skin color. I don’t find it hard to talk about skin color with my daughter (age 3), but that is a very small part of talking about racial/ethnic appearance and identity.
In fact, it seems to me that you can talk honestly about skin color while simultaneously avoiding the topic of race. In some cases, choosing to use color words like “peach” or “beige” could be used to avoid the cultural, historical and power issues associated with the racialized color words. But how much can we or should we talk about racial/ethnic identity with preschoolers or early elementary-age children? Some of it seems too complex for them to grasp and some of it is too horrifying to want to burden them with. History is just as nightmarish as the evening news.
I was once at a playground with my daughter (we are white) and a little black girl insisted on identifying my daughter as “light-skinned,” not “white”. I could only imagine that this child had recently been corrected for calling a family friend or relative “white”. The complexity of racial identity in America went right over her head, and she had merely adopted a new term for pale skin. I was touched by her innocence.
At the time my daughter was not speaking in sentences. I’m not sure how or if I would talk about this incident with her if it happened now. Mostly what it brings to mind is the disgusting ideology of the “one drop” rule.
Skin tone is easy compared with talking to children about the shapes of facial features, especially for white people who don’t want to transmit racist ideas. Most of the descriptive terms that come to mind are loaded with racist associations for us (”slanted” eyes, “round” eyes, “big, hooked” noses, “wide, flat” noses, “full” lips).
Plus, I think most people are mostly really finely attuned to the constellation of physical features that signal “one of us” (i.e. Jews notice Jews, Koreans notice Koreans, Persians notice Persians) but don’t pay much attention to distinguishing among other groups. In any case it’s often hard to put into words just what the constellation of facial, kinetic, linguistic, sartorial and other cultural signs we use to figure out if a stranger is “one of us”.
Posted 25 Jan 2009 at 10:24 am ¶