Open thread

9 Responses to Open thread

1. Florence says:

   March 19, 2009 at 8:33 am

   Hello all,
   I read this blog for several months now and it’s very important for me. I’m from France, a white woman grown in an exclusively white environment, and I have a lot to learn. So I would like to thank all contributors for their work and to say how useful it is to do this.
   I’m trying to find my place as an anti-racist person, to do my part of the work. I live now in a relatively diverse environment and I can see the blindness around. I think what I can do is helping white persons like me to begin the journey towards anti-racism. I’m not very good at discussion, but I’m patient and I understand them: I was one of them. I’m not trying to excuse things like colorblindness or worse, but I know how difficult it is to “unlearn” certain things. When someone grows up believing that race doesn’t matter, (s)he also believes that talking about race means being racist. Before you can talk about race with that sort of persons, you have to prepare a long time before, just pointing at things: fix an incorrect word, showing the lack of diversity in role models, the privilege they have in being in the majority…
   Thanks to ARP, I can now talk about race and racism without feeling awkward. Not so long ago, I was so afraid of making mistakes that it was very difficult for me (well, at the beginning, I did mistakes and wasn’t even aware of them). So I’m proud of all the learning I have achieved and I’m eager to learn more.
   Please excuse my bad English, and thank you everybody!
2. Kandi says:

   March 19, 2009 at 9:18 am

   I was there was a combination of anti-racism/anti-sexism. I am finding more and more parenting situations that involve both.
3. Wanderinglady says:

   March 19, 2009 at 11:32 am

   It would be helpful to have a “sticky” list of resources (such as books and websites) that parents and other concerned people can refer to. I know that a couple of times in the “open threads” there have been requests for relevant children’s books. I’ve tried to search for those posts on this site, but to no avail.
4. Margie says:

   March 19, 2009 at 7:57 pm

   As contributor who has been really bad at contributing lately *hangs head in shame* I probably shouldn’t be commenting, but one idea springs to mind.

   I find it really hard to keep up with all the material being written on race and parenting; getting insight from others in the form of recommendations and reviews would be really helpful.
5. Mike C says:

   March 20, 2009 at 4:13 am

   I read anti-racist parent regularly. I was raised in the SF bay area among all races, and have lived overseas for my entire adult life. We’re now raising a biracial kid, and I’m trying to stay sensitive to issues he may face, and also try to pass on the celebration of diverse backgrounds that I was raised to see as important.

   I read almost every article, and my only complaint is that there are not enough of them. Would it be possible to get more contributors to write some more thoughtful articles?
6. Lu says:

   March 20, 2009 at 11:39 am

   I would second two ideas:

   1. As Kandi said, more about the intersection of sexism and racism would be great, the recent Chris Brown attack being a good example of how the two can be hard to separate

   2. More posts. Ideally, for me at least, ARP would post once a day or even sometimes twice. I think by expanding the contributors you could do it, because that would bring in new voices as well as take come pressure of the contributors you already have to keep cranking out posts.

   I am confident you would have no problems finding additional contributors!
7. PureGracefulTree says:

   March 20, 2009 at 11:25 pm

   I’d love to have some local meet-and-greets (playdates?) like they do on Racialicious. Could ARP help facilitate this in some way? I don’t really know how many readers are in my geographical area (East San Francisco Bay) or how to do this in a way that guarantees everyone’s safety—both physical and otherwise—given that this site is wide open for anyone to read.
8. Ariah Fine says:

   March 21, 2009 at 12:38 am

   As a huge fan of the site and what it stands for, I also find it’s too much to keep up with at times, especially when raising kids can be very age specific.

   My idea:
   Make a discussion forum the main component of the site and the blog secondary. The blog content is great, but a chornological blog format isn’t as useful for parenting tips (better for current event type stories, which many are).

   A discussion forum would allow for greater participation by readers who are hesitant to contribute full blown posts.

   Just a thought. If you did it that way I’d love to be a moderator or something…
9. Torey says:

   March 26, 2009 at 4:30 pm

   I second Puregracefultree’s suggestion – and I’m in the same part of the world – and her safety concerns, too. How could we do this?