written by Anti-Racist Parent contributor Susan Raffo of White Noise
It hit me while I was still pregnant. Standing there at the Mall of America, looking up at the huge rotunda of bright lights and countless stores, I realized something. This baby I carried inside of me, at this point no bigger than a knucklebone, was going to be privileged with a capital “P.” And with that awareness, I entered a place of contradiction. You see, I could already feel the mama-self growing in me; that place where my bear claws would live, where the desire to do anything to make this child safe, make this child whole, would growl as it grew stronger. That mama-self doesn’t feel like a choice. It’s in there, hooked around my mitochondria and woven into the DNA.
But there’s this other self; sometimes called the political self or the activist self or the stand back and pay attention self. It knows that my child — white and raised by white parents in a family where the adults have the gift of education, have choice about their work, and own their own home — is a privileged child. Every gain my mama-self wants to support my child in making will be on the backs of other children, children with mother’s whose mama-selves are just as fierce as mine but who have to fight against real monsters like hunger or violence.
And this is the contradiction that crept into my belly standing there, at the Mall of America. I felt sad, and a different flavor of fierce. Luca’s creativity, her curiosity and her passion have the time and space to be priorities when we think about raising her. We don’t have to protect her daily from violence or spend most of our time finding food. All children should have the same kind of space. Standing there in the Mall of America, my fierceness shifted and grew larger. It became less about my child and more about the community of children. In other words, my question was not “what is the best for my daughter” and more, “what is the best for all children?” How does this question affect how I parent? How do my partner and I – and all of our friends and families – raise our children in a way that honors the lives and struggles of all children?
Whiteness
Here is what we noticed right away: both the race of our daughter and the economic privilege of our family. We have enough – not a lot, but enough. And we are white women raising a white daughter. Here is the question that followed that: how do we, from the very beginning, start raising Luca to be a different kind of white? What does it MEAN to be a different kind of white? This feels about way more than having a commitment to anti-racism. It feels like being a different kind of person entirely.
As a quick aside, my partner and I have a belief system about race, racism and white privilege that assumes that the legacies of slavery, the attempted genocide of Native Americans, European colonialism and its affect here in the Americas and elsewhere in the world has created a present day moment of inequity based on skin color, language, culture of origin and so on. Within that belief system, the fact that my partner and I have light skin and ethnicities with the majority of ancestors being European gives us a kind of privilege. There isn’t the space in this article to explain what we mean by white privilege and white supremacy and racism. At the end, there are resources listed for further exploration.
So, white parents raising white children. We looked at books and blogs. We googled for magazine articles and newspaper features. We talked with our friends – white and of color – and kept coming against the same thing: there is hardly anything out there that directly talks about raising white kids to be anti-racist, to work against white privilege, to be a different flavor, an accountable and creative flavor, of white. There are resources about raising children to live in a multicultural world. There are resources about raising your children to respect difference. There are books about nonviolent child-rearing. But really thinking about what kind of white your kid might be? It’s not out there. And here’s why: most of us white adults don’t really understand what it is to be white ourselves. We sometimes have language about being Irish- or Italian-American, or about growing up on a farm, being Midwestern or from the mountains, but this whiteness thing? The ways in which being white affects our sense of who we are and the communities around us? We usually have no words.
My partner and I decided that if we’re going to raise a white child we want to pay attention to how she becomes white and how she is white. It’s the same thing as paying attention to the fact that she is a girl, that she likes to dance but isn’t so into playing soccer, that she gets shy in front of lots of people she doesn’t know. Each of these things is about her, and each is about the world around her.
Paying attention to how our child becomes white is about a lot of things: and we already know that we don’t know half of them. Sometimes it means paying attention to all of the ways in which being white gives her a kind of “get out of jail free” card, a kind of free pass into better jobs, more income, and less stress and struggle. It means watching and learning from what happens when she pops out of me, all instinct for survival and connection to mama, and starts to grow a personality and set of understandings about herself and the world. It means learning what there is to be proud of, to celebrate, about who she is in the world as a white person.
So, since this is true, we decided to get help. And while folks of color probably are smartest about what being white means, after all, they have to deal with us all of the time, they aren’t the ones who have to fix this part of the crazy mess. It’s up to us to figure this one out. I mean, if as white parents, we can’t figure out how to help our white kids become compassionately or powerfully or collectively white, well, then who can? It’s pretty much our responsibility.
Laying the groundwork
We gathered together a group of white friends, parents every one of them, and decided to form a group. We call it White Noise as a way of describing the everyday annoying distraction from thinking and paying attention that’s akin to living with white privilege. Our kids are all young – the oldest is Luca and she’s only seven. And we sure haven’t figured everything out. But we figure it’s time to bring the light in. The more we share what we’ve learned, the faster it’s going to grow. And growing our understanding of how to raise a white child to make being white an entirely different thing, that’s what we want to grow.
Right now, we call what we do “laying the groundwork.” Meaning, since we have young children whose needs and questions are still more simple than complex, we figure we’re just trying to help their bodies get clear about whiteness. At the end of the day, there is no single recipe for how to do this. Raising white children is really about just plain raising our children to pay attention to all of who they are. We can’t protect them from anything. The best we can do is prepare them to carry the tools they need to weather the multiple storms their lives will bring them. That’s why we call the work we are doing with our young children, “laying the groundwork.” Our intent is to support them to experiences themselves and the world around them in a way that will feed their ability to not only do anti-racist work but also be anti-racist “from the ground up.”
Making whiteness visible
Somewhere around four years old, we started to notice Luca, when describing her friends, only “raced” her friends of color. Meaning, when she was describing people to us who she knew, she described her friends of color as “Black” or “Native” but her white friends as “with red hair” or “tall.” Already, at four years old, and living in a multiracial community, white had become normal for Luca. Normal in a way that means invisible. So, one of the first steps is to just plain make whiteness visible. This means making sure that all of us, when we are describing people, talk as much about white friends as we do our Black or Asian friends. But making whiteness visible is more than that.
The minute we are born, we are surrounded by information. Some of it is directly pointed out for us by the adults in our lives. Most of it goes completely unnoticed by all of us, children and adults alike. Making whiteness visible means seeking to notice the presence of whiteness in every aspect of our lives. How do we do this? We practice everyday. What does that mean? Well, one example is when we walk into a store or into a restaurant or down a neighborhood street, we ask: “Who is here?” and then we notice. Once we notice who is here, we began to intentionally wonder about why they are here. And then to notice who isn’t here. And to wonder the same thing.
A story for explanation: we are out running errands and we all get hungry. We stop by a coffee shop. Right away, Luca notices, “There are only white people in here.” Raquel and I both look around and see that she is right. So then we ask, “Why might there be only white people in here?” We notice that the coffee shop is in a predominantly white upper-middle-class neighborhood. So we assume that drop-in traffic is going to be mostly local. We wonder if people of color might not come by this coffee shop or this neighborhood because it might not be comfortable or because they wouldn’t feel welcome or reflected back by the staff or other customers. We next wonder if there are people of color who would even be interested in this coffee shop – maybe the culture of this coffee shop is one that mostly white people are attracted to and so some folks of color are choosing to not come here, or to instead go somewhere that will better reflect their experiences. Then we talk about what it is like for us to be in this coffee shop – noticing that when we are white and we fit in with the other white people, we barely even notice that we are white. We talk about how there are different kinds of white people, but even though there are different kinds, we don’t really need to think about race when we are among all white people. This is important. We notice that we don’t need to think about or even notice race when we are around other white people.
Making whiteness visible means noticing the books we read, the movies or television shows we watch, the people in our families and neighborhoods, and the rhythm of everyday life. It’s a practice for white people, just like meditation or parenting is a practice. If we don’t do it constantly, we don’t notice.
Learn together
Don’t assume you have to already know everything before you start trying to teach your children. You know the syndrome: the perfect parent syndrome. Our kids look up to us. They ask us questions about the world around them and wait for us to share what we know. When they’re young, we are all-knowing in their eyes. It can be scary to have to admit to your child that you are clueless about some aspect of the world around you.
Figuring out how to be white is something we do together with our children. We can tell them what we have experienced, our ideas and struggles and understandings, but living in the world with consciousness as a white person is not about getting it right once and then being done forever. It’s about making mistakes and learning and then making more mistakes and then learning more and inch by precious inch, feeling the world open up around us.
Learning with our children is about being in process, in struggle, in family with the most important people in our lives. It is about sharing the fact that this is life-long work, that we are all learning together, and that your child has some valuable things to teach you even as you have things to share with them. That last piece is really important. The minute our kids are born, they are learning –both directly and indirectly – how to be white, which includes how to be a racist. Thandeka in her book, “Learning to Be White: Money, Race and God in America,” states that the first act of child abuse directed towards all white children is that the minute they come out of the womb, they are being taught to be racist. So the game has already started, whether or not we ever directly address race and whiteness in our family. But kids have something we don’t have. Even though they have already started learning their whiteness, it hasn’t embedded itself over decades of experience. Their brains and nervous systems are still literally creating their bodies, their identities, their sense of self in the world. Much has already been established no matter when we start, but much is also open for shifting and changing.
Some of what is confusing to adults is likely to make gentle sense to children. Some of the places where we adults make this thick and complex is likely to be simple and poetic to our children. In listening to the questions they ask, the reflections they make, we can learn a whole bunch about how whiteness grows.
Know your own shit. Oh lovely shit, oh layered deep old stuff which gets triggered by the innocent voices of our children. The shame of it. The guilt. The embarrassment. What do I do if my child says something racist? What will others think of me? Will they look over at me, knowing what a horrible mother I am, because my son just came out with something funky about that woman’s hair, her skin, the way she talks? What will people say?
This is a big one. A really big one. As soon as we encourage our children to reflect on the world around them, to say what they are thinking and feeling and to invite conversation, well, they start to talk. And they will say things just about everywhere. And in front of just about everyone. And they will ask questions. Why is your hair like that? Did you notice that your skin is really dark? Wow, look, my mom’s arm is really white next to your arm! How come all the Black kids play basketball? Did you know that your grandfather was probably a slave? Your kids will say things that are beyond what you could possibly imagine. And they should say those things. Because this is how they learn. But they are only going to learn if you are open to hearing them. Which means knowing your own shit. Here is what we mean by that: What is going on for you when you hear your kids say something that triggers your “that’s racist” button? What emotions come up? What are you concerned about? What do you do when those emotions come up? We have all seen parents, when reacting to something their child has said, looking quickly around and saying, “shhhh, that’s not a nice thing to say,” or “Stop that! Don’t be rude!!” or any number of other things. We know the feeling in our bellies when we are walking through the world, thinking about our grocery list or the drive back home, when junior says something that immediately makes us feel exposed and visible. As white people. As potentially bad parents. Raising our children to be white is about knowing our reactions and finding ways to NOT shut our children down when they ask those kinds of questions.
Of course, this is also complicated. It’s a different thing to have a three-year-old making a comment about a stranger in a store, it’s another thing for a 13-year-old to say it. Embedded in supporting our children to ask questions and be open to learning about the world around them, is also teaching them about respect. Teaching them that people are not objects but individuals with feelings and complex lives. Because the reality is that while our children are reflecting on the world around them, the people of color they are reflecting about are real people who just might not be in the mood to hear yet another person talk about their hair – even if it is a gap-toothed five year old. Everything about this work includes supporting our children to act as respectful members of communities, every single day and in every single context.
Another part of knowing your own shit is knowing your own story, all of it. What is your culture? Did you grow up in a city, a suburb, the countryside? What celebrations and rituals did you grow up with? What kind of food? Do you have a word for it? What did you learn about work? About taking care of your own family or other people? Who felt “like you” and who felt different? What is your culture?
The other piece of knowing our own shit is knowing our own understandings of race and whiteness. What did you learn about race and whiteness when you were a child? Really, spend time here. Think about the kinds of things you were directly taught and the things you witnessed. Notice what your life looks like, who the people are who surround you, your sense of why different people are different form you. Think about what it means for you to be white, to be an anti-racist. Find people you trust to talk to about these things. There is a whole bunch you can talk to your children about, and there’s a whole bunch you need to learn with other adults. Don’t stop thinking about yourself, noticing your beliefs, your reactions, your concerns. Stay with your own work.
Don’t immediately go big, stay specific. Remember those reflections our children make in public places – or sometimes private? The ones that make our insides flare up as we struggle to make sure our own shit doesn’t get in the way of our children learning? This is about those times. Example, when Luca was walking by the basketball court in our neighborhood park, she suddenly asked why only Black people play basketball. In my belly flared up things like: oh shit, that’s so racist. It isn’t only Black people that play basketball, and oh god, I have to help her understand the complexity, and on and on. But here’s the funky thing about young children: she was only describing what she saw and asking about it. It is true that when Luca walks by this playground, most of the time the people she sees are Black men. And so she wants to know why. And while the answer is complex and many-layered, there is an answer. Or there are answers that will unravel over the time of her growing up. It’s a legitimate question based on an observation. Stay specific, listen to what your child is saying or watch what they are doing. Are they in distress? Are they worried or having any kind of emotion? Is it just a question? Before making any assumptions about what your child’s question might mean, ask them about it. Refer to knowing your own shit and learning together. Keep the channels of conversation and learning open.
Here’s another example from a white friend of mine: she picked up her white grandson from his preschool. His first comment to her was: “I don’t like Black people. I don’t think I want them to be my friends”. My friend freaked out, her emotions rose up to the sky, and she jumped in immediately, asking with an anxious voice what he meant but also saying that of course he doesn’t know all Black people, and a whole bunch of other things that she doesn’t remember because her emotions were so high. And as she was talking, she saw him retreat into himself, getting quiet and logging away the information that this wasn’t something he should talk about.
And my friend kicked herself from here to the preschool and back, knowing that she had goofed but feeling overwhelmed. As she later asked more questions, she learned that her grandson’s school had just done a chapter on the civil rights. During this chapter, there was a lot of conversation about Black folks as a people or as a community. Her grandson knew Black folks but he knew them as individuals. He had never thought of anyone as a “people.” While he knew Black folks out in the world, there was only one Black child in his preschool class: a boy who, for whatever reason, teased him a lot. So my friend’s grandson put things together in a pattern in his head: “this kid is a Black kid and he is mean to me. Black kids are part of a Black people. I don’t like playing with this Black kid and I don’t want to be his friend. Therefore, I don’t want to be friends with Black people.” If you take away the sting and the legacy of racism, you’ve got to admit there’s a logic to this.
As we talked about it, my friend wished that she had just hit the pause button after her grandson spoke. She wished she had started right away with asking questions, not putting any kind of value on his words until she understood what he was actually talking about. Because now she has to undo something, one of the somethings that white supremacy depends on. She has to undo this idea that some things are not “polite” to talk about, that there is something uncomfortably emotional about talking about Black people, that grandma freaks out when you bring it up so don’t bring this kind of stuff up.
And every single one of us is going to have to undo moments like this. Because we will all make mistakes. Because we are learning as we go. We make mistakes and we will continue to make them. The important thing is to keep coming back, being honest with our kids about our own struggle, and asking for their help in figuring this out.
And maybe that’s how this article will end. As we enter our third year of White Noise, the group focus is shifting. There are some new people joining in the Fall, some people who are stepping out. We now share a groundwork among ourselves as adults, and we share some thoughts about how to start laying the groundwork with our children. In our meetings, we laugh a lot, we freak out, we forget to bring up important things, we spend too much time talking about the easy stuff and sometimes we dip into the hard and scary things that move us all forward.
Recently, we’ve been talking about the aspects of our cultures that really prop up white supremacy. We’ve been talking about how the protestant work ethic is one aspect of white supremacy, the particular values about how we approach work and “responsibility”, what gets called laziness or self-indulgent, how we think about the relationship between work, family and community. We have talked about the difference in valuing relationships and community versus valuing “getting things done.” We have talked about how raising our children to code-shift is an important part of resisting white supremacy. This means being able to move across cultures and communities without losing a sense of themselves and without assuming that everyone else has to be just like them. And we are talking about moving outside of our own comfort zones in figuring these out. Meaning, not just reading books and getting together to discuss, but maybe, actually, playing; with our kids and not just alone as a bunch of serious adults.
We will continue to learn together. As our children get older and enter different developmental stages with different relationships with friends, community and self, we will need to figure out new things. And at the end of the day, we know this group is far more for us adults than for our kids. Because they will be living their lives separate from us. Their choices will be their own and their mistakes their own as well. By laying the groundwork, our hope is that we support our children to feel empowered and creative as white people to live in the whole world, with wide open eyes and a sense of accountability and celebration. And that in living in the whole world, they might be part of shifting the pattern so that there are more children with each successive generation who also truly have access to the whole world. What we have realized is that we can’t take our children’s privilege away but we can work to shift our collective understanding of what that privilege means.
A good basic article on White Privilege is by Peggy McIntosh: http://www.amptoons.com/blog/files/mcintosh.html
White Privilege: Essential Readings on the other side of Racism (an anthology) by Paula S. Rotherberg, Worth Publishers
White Supremacy Culture by Tema Okun http://www.prisonactivist.org/archive/cws/dr-culture.html
Acknowledgements: Susan, Raquel, Susan, Nicola, Amy, Lisa and all past members of White Noise, Vikki, Kris, Kristen, Kristin, Jen, Laura, and Karn.
White Noise is a group of white parents with white children who have been meeting for two years to learn together and support each other in ending white supremacy.
Wonderful!
I like the idea of pointing out whiteness. I think I’d decided against an exercise like that because it seemed TOO focused on appearances. But the way you describe it makes it sound practical. Especially because you’ve articulated its goal: being aware of whiteness.
This meets the goal of the quote below of deliberate and persistent effort.
“Let neither [Blacks nor Whites] think that anything short of genuine love, extreme patience, true humility, consummate tact, sound initiative, mature wisdom, and deliberate, persistent, and prayerful effort, can succeed in blotting out the stain which this patent evil has left on the fair name of their common country” (Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice, p. 40).
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Great article. I had similar moments when I realized I was the mother of a young white boy. I adore him and he gets lots of public adoration for his cheeks and curly hair, but I don’t want him to believe public adoration is his due.
Where is White Noise? Does White Noise or the author do speaking tours? I work for a group that may be interested in hosting a speaker in the next couple years as we get it together to do a new program focused on active nonviolence and parenting.
Thank you so much for this. This is a great piece on how to do the daily work of addressing race and racism with a child for a white parent. I love the idea of creating a peer group of anti-racist kids as well.
This post is the amongst the best I’ve read re: white anti-racism. It’s refreshing to have a parent’s point-of-view; a real-life on-the-ground daily point-of-view. It’s also honest, in that the parent acknowledges what she knows and what she doesn’t know. Parenting and child rearing is a constant state of becoming. It is messy, imperfect, but always striving to do it better the next time. Although I am not a parent, and although I am a person of color, I caught caught up in the writer’s journey. I felt her intentionality, and the high degree of importance she places on raising a white anti-racist child.
Perhaps a naive question, but, I wonder what counterpart exists to this with respect to parents of color raising children of color. I tend to feel that children of color are taught from a very early age what a burden life is, what a struggle it will be when they become older, and how they need to be prepared to fight – emotionally, and, perhaps, even physically. I wasn’t raised this way. I think my parents allowed my brother and me to do a lot of observing, thinking and questioning. I don’t want to give anyone, and especially other people of color the idea that my parents allowed my brother to flap in the proverbial wind. However, race – ours and that of others – wasn’t presented as a negative, but as something to be celebrated and for which I will be forever grateful.
Thank you for this article, Susan. As a young white woman who intends to have children someday — children who will probably be at least half white — I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about how to raise them to be anti-racist without imposing on parents of color to educate me and/or my children. I want my kids (and the white children I babysit now…this isn’t all still theoretical for me) to grow up understanding white privilege and racism without feeling as if I’m constantly beating them over the the heads with white guilt. Your description of White Noise was extremely inspiring, as were your practical examples. Discussing and answering specifics particularly stuck out at me — I definitely have the tendency to launch into long lectures about institutional racism (or sexism, or heterosexism, or classism…) when a short and specific answer would be far more informative and effective. Thank you!
Thanks so much, Susan, for this article. It’s very inspiring to learn that this is happening.
I must admit, though, I’m hung up on your basketball example. How did you respond? I feel thoroughly stumped…
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I found this article very thought provoking. I certainly have to applaud the writer’s efforts–I see for myself in my white friends what a difference conscious anti-racist parenting can make.
I have to admit though, that this WOC gets a little nervous at the idea of white people self-segregating, whatever the intent. But I do appreciate the understanding that, as white parents of white children, this is your work to do, and it is not the job of POC to educate you.
One question though–you talk about raising your daughter to be “a different kind of white.” And “learning what there is to be proud of, to celebrate, about who she is in the world as a white person.” I don’t mean this disrespectfully, but can there ever be anything to celebrate about whiteness? Is there any “different kind” of whiteness that is not rooted in white supremacy? To my understanding, whiteness is by definition about exclusion and hierarchy–that is its origin and its function. I would think the anti-racist struggle would be about challenging the very notion of whiteness to begin with–rejecting it rather than trying to transform a fundamentally oppressive concept. But I’m not white, so I’m really not qualified to tell you how to grapple with your identity, just putting out some ideas this article raised with me.
Well I have much to say and I’m going to have to do a blog post to respond to this properly. First of all as a black woman I think you may be trying to do the “right” thing but your implementation goes against basic human nature of survival of the fittest.
Groups that want to thrive and survive do NOT give up any advantage they have without a fight. You have also equated your privilege with whiteness and not class. There are plenty of black people who are doing just fine and don’t need you looking out for them so to speak. Also you can’t stop other people from enacting their privilege and wanting to reward others like them.
So I’m not certain what you’re going to give up in your everyday life that “gives” privilege to others but the very idea that you can only proves that you’re holding all the cards. A benevolent dictator is still a dictator by nature. I’d love to know the reaction of the average white person who doesn’t frequent anti-racist web sites to this idea of yours.
Kavita wrote: “I don’t mean this disrespectfully, but can there ever be anything to celebrate about whiteness? Is there any “different kind” of whiteness that is not rooted in white supremacy? To my understanding, whiteness is by definition about exclusion and hierarchy–that is its origin and its function. I would think the anti-racist struggle would be about challenging the very notion of whiteness to begin with–rejecting it rather than trying to transform a fundamentally oppressive concept.”
Kavita I think this is a fascintating question. I don’t really know the answer. But I wonder if white children can develop a healthy sense of their own racial identity if the very state of “whiteness” is so full of shame that they feel the need to deny their own race. I say this because sometimes I think white people are racist out of defensiveness and self-loathing, if that makes sense. Sometimes I wonder if a healthy racial identity for all people (including whites) would promote less racism. While I agree whites have priveledge, I think that mean of us hold a great deal of shame about our “whiteness” in the context you are speaking about. And I wonder how that could be affecting race relations . . .
Faith,
I don’t think it’s about “giving up” privilege. I mean, I can never give up the privilege I have as a child of educated, middle class parents. I can’t give it up because a) it has created opportunities that I would be foolish to reject, and b) a lot of privilege involves how OTHER PEOPLE respond to you.
That said, by recognizing my privilege, I can help mitigate its effects on other people who are marginalized because they lack the class privilege that I have.
Imagine how much better the world would be if even 25 percent of people recognized the privileges they hold?
I don’t feel any particular guilt over being white and I don’t think it would be appropriate to teach children they must feel guilty for being white. My ancestors and people who look like me have accomplished a lot of positive things, contributed a great deal to culture and knowledge. I’m Irish, French, English, Scots, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, etc. and there are specific things from all of those cultures that are still part of my family traditions and family stories and self-image. It’s appropriate to teach children to feel part of those traditions and to build on them. I don’t know if that’s the same thing as being proud of “whiteness,” but most people would agree that the average person from one of those countries is white. I also don’t see any real reason not to praise a kid for his curly hair or his pretty blue eyes. He’s probably cute. Why wouldn’t you say so when he’s a little guy?
It’s also appropriate to point out to kids that there are horrible things that a European-dominated culture did in the past to blacks and Asians and American Indians and Hispanics and that white kids are still treated better in some instances. It’s a lesson in what not to do in the future rather than tying their self-image and identity to that shame. They didn’t do anything. They’re not responsible for it. They can do better in the future and they’re responsible for what THEY do. That’s the only fair way to approach a lesson like that.
I think some of the things the author of this column is doing are positive. It makes sense to teach her child her values and comment on why she might be treated differently because of her race and class in certain places and how that isn’t fair, etc. The child will grow up with a vocabulary to describe what she sees and will probably be more aware of the subtext of certain situations.
Thanks for this article! Very inspiring and some good ideas to mull over.
I totally agree with Andrea.
However, it is important to note that not only Europeans are guilty of doing bad things and oppressing people.
Europeans, throughout history, were oppressed by Asians (parts of Europe were under their occupation for hundreds of years), Arabs (they occupied European countries for centuries and destroyed their cultures and values) and Africans (did you know that Africans had over 1 million European slaves???)
It’s imperative to have a balanced education and there’s no reason why I, or any White people, should feel guilty. If you want us to feel guilty, so should other races then.
Andrea and Jane,
I think you misunderstand what Susan and her group are trying to offer their children. They are not trying to teach their children to be ashamed of whiteness or to encourage them to take personal responsiblity for the wrongs of ancestors. That would be foolish.
The members of White Noise are trying to teach their children to be cognizant of a racial privilege inherent in our culture TODAY, not in the past. Race is but one possible form of privilege, but it is one that holds tremendous sway in this country.
Acknowleging privilege does not exactly mean being ashamed of or somehow giving up privilege. See my comment to Faith above:
“I can never give up the privilege I have as a child of educated, middle class parents. I can’t give it up because a) it has created opportunities that I would be foolish to reject, and b) a lot of privilege involves how OTHER PEOPLE respond to you.
That said, by recognizing my privilege, I can help mitigate its effects on other people who are marginalized because they lack the class privilege that I have.”
This concept seems easier for people to grasp when we’re not talking about race, but instead class or gender.
Again…imagine how much better the world would be if even 25 percent of people recognized the privileges they hold?
I was responding to the posts made above by Kavita, Kristen, and Faith as well as to the original column. Kavita asked “Can there be anything to celebrate about whiteness?” Kristen said she thinks some people have a great deal of shame about the whiteness in the context of what their ancestors and the larger society have done and she thinks it may affect race relations. Faith asked what the reaction of the average white person might be to “White Noise.” The above is my answer.
I don’t think there’s much wrong with the idea of “White Noise.” I might approach the topic differently if I were ever to have a talk on the subject with my nephew, but the basic ideas are good ones.
Andrea,
Got it.
@Jane #13
You wrote:
“Europeans, throughout history, were oppressed by Asians (parts of Europe were under their occupation for hundreds of years), Arabs (they occupied European countries for centuries and destroyed their cultures and values) and Africans (did you know that Africans had over 1 million European slaves???)”
–Ummm…..source? And when you write “throughout history”–time frame would be helpful. Because since the “modern” period or European colonization has been the rule of order, globally speaking, which means on the conservative side, since the 15th century (really, we can thank Christopher Columbus for popping open the can of worms on that one).
I’m not sure what you are specifically referring to pre-15th century, but most historians will agree that Euoropean colonization and imperialism held sway for a good 3-4 centuries starting with Columbus. Although your point might be that other civilizations have had their fair share of dominating and slaughtering other groups, fair enough, that’s certain true. However, you also wrote:
“It’s imperative to have a balanced education and there’s no reason why I, or any White people, should feel guilty. If you want us to feel guilty, so should other races then.”
I don’t think that the article was asking you or any other white person to feel guilty. I applaud Susan and other members of white noise for trying to recognize WHITE PRIVILEGE and a legacy of WHITE SUPREMACY that has been the de facto rule of law in the United States since its founding. And when I say white supremacy, I’m not talking about the KKK–I’m talking about a not-so-subtle belief system that to be “normal,” is to be “white” and all others who are not white are not normal and in its most insidious form, not human.
In the United States different groups: American Indians, African slaves, Chinese immigrants, Mexican farmers, were denigrated as inhuman through the ideology of white supremacy and we feel its effects today in the form of white privilege (read Peggy McIntosh’s article–it’s really excellent and succinct on the topic of white privilege).
So I agree–we need a balanced education. And most of us have never received one in our K-12 education and unless you deliberately took an ethnic studies course or a sociology of racism class or an African American history seminar, you probably didn’t get it in college.
The context of racism in the United States is the ways in which white Americans have benefited from an ideology of white supremacy that leaves them with certain privileges based on race.
Are there other factors like class, education, sexuality, region, religion that add or detract from one’s privilege? Absolutely–Tami brought up an excellent point. And it’s imperative to think of the intersections of these factors.
So I just have to ask, if you are reading a blog called Anti-Racist Parent, why are you feeling so defensive about people making you feel guilty when, as far as I can tell from everything I’ve read here, no one is asking you to be ashamed of who you are. I think what we are looking for are allies of all types to fight against oppression, specifically racial oppression. Are you in?
Greetings, all. I was otherwise away from the internet for a few days and just came on to the honor of this conversation. There are so many streams already touched on above and I know I can’t do all of them justice. I will try to join in the conversation a little more here. First, I agree that to separate class and race privilege is dangerous. I think the two are entwined and, increasingly, I feel like the US needs to find a new word that shows their connection in that I think we use race in the US, although not exclusively but certainly significantly, to talk about class. Many of the members of White Noise are from working class/poor backgrounds as white folks – although not everyone. We talk about this, most definitely, but it was beyond the scope of this article to talk about. I think the differences among white folks are truly important AND I think they blend together when we are talking about race privilege. A both/and moment.
What do I mean when I write “a different kind of white”"? To some degree, I have no idea. I don’t know what it will be like to be a person in this body living in a culture/community in which this body does not have unearned power/privilege. I often think that if I/we do our work well enough, then race truly becomes what it is – a socially constructed category with no power. In other words, race as a component of power and privilege just disappears. That isn’t to say that culture and difference and language and all of the ways we are not the same goes away – instead, how it is valued begins to shift. That, sadly, is many many generations away. Along the way, I hope to think and work in solidarity towards that goal. I think there is a lot to be nervous about white folks gathering alone as white folks and thinking about racism. We are constantly unaware of the amount of harm that we do – and there is no reason to think that this won’t be the case even when we are thinking about our children. That’s in large part the reason for transparency in a venue like this – so that we can be called on the things we need to be called on, can learn along with all of you how to do this work differently, with tons of mistakes and stumbles and wrong turns. For me, the issue of being white is not about pride or guilt – it’s about a kind of power and privilege I have that i didn’t earn, that hurts others and that constantly supports a system of inequity. I don’t think about my daughter going, “Whoo hoo, I’m white and I’m proud.” There’s no need for her to do that – the world does that for her, meaning, the world around her constantly reinforces for her that she is just great the way she is, that she fits in, that she belongs. I do hope that as she grows older, she chooses to align herself with a legacy of white folks who have resisted white supremacy and racism and that she feels herself less an individual in a crowd and more part of a larger collective. And that in doing so, she understands that she is part of a complex history and she has choices – to some degree- over how she exists within her whiteness. There is so much more to say here so forgive me for now ending my part of this conversation today. Thank you so much for so much thoughtfulness. I am grateful and look forward to continuing to learn more along with all of you.
Oh, and White Noise meets in Minneapolis, MN. We are informal as a group. Feel free to continue to contact me/ us via ARP or via my email raffo95@gmail.com
Amazing essay
Susan,
Thanks for writing such an honest and open article about both your mistakes and insights made while raising Luca. I’d like to echo Julia’s (#6) question about Luca’s basketball observation–what did you say and how did she respond??
“Again…imagine how much better the world would be if even 25 percent of people recognized the privileges they hold?”
Exactly! And while we may not be capable of giving up privilege, we CAN decide to give up the exploitation that privilege often contributes to.
I realize there are a few other comments I missed responding to. I apologize for that. First, Faith – I am listening to your words and thinking about them. I can say that in no way is it my intent to think of this as “giving” privilege to anyone else. I don’t think that’s possible. Instead, what we are trying to do is to work against the invisibility of white privilege for white people by making it visible and therefore increasing the places where white folks can make choices rather than operate in ignorance. Having said that, I know that intent is not the same thing as impact and so I will definitely reread and think about the post through your words – and we will also bring your words back to the group. Thank you for them. I will look for your post when you write it as well.
In terms of basketball, it’s an ongoing answer because there really isn’t one answer. The first response was just a basic observation response – yes, in this particular court in front of our house whenever we walk by, the people we see playing basketball are almost always black men. That’s an observation. From there we talked about the other kinds of sports played in our park and who plays them – soccer which is almost always played by Latino folks, ice skating which is mostly white folks, and so on. We talked about different groups of friends, families, cultures, communities who grow up playing different kinds of games. That was the first response. We have then woven back to the question lots of different times and in different ways, talking about choice – do the folks playing basketball completely choose to play? How come it isn’t a mix of folks? And we’ve talked at other times about the ways in which each of us are told we have a chance at being important in the world and how these measuring sticks a’ren’t equal opportunity measuring sticks, etc. I think that the point is that with each of these questions, there is never a single answer because it’s never a single thing. So when Luca asks us about something like this, we try to remember and keep weaving back to it to allow more and more layers to show. In terms of how Luca responds to all of this – we don’t always talk about stuff when we want to bring things up – Luca might not have the space for it or the interest. As often as possible, we find ways to tie it to her experiences. And she is used to these kinds of conversations, they’ve been happening since she was preverbal so generally, she enters the conversation and we talk. that doesn’t mean she always “gets”it anymore than we always “get”it. Lots of time we’ll come back to the same things over and over again, each time maybe getting a little deeper.
I am going to say one more thing here – I want to be cautious about how anything I offer is taken. None of this is about “getting it right”or “finding the right answer.” We shouldnt’ get any particular credit from anyone for doing this kind of work. If anything, we offer the work as a way of being part of a larger conversation, and as a way of being challenged and held up on our stuff.
There is something about all of this that makes me think of something my brother once said – he took his son to a playground and noticed how much positive attention he got from the mothers there. They were so pleased, they told him, to see a father taking an interest in and some time with his child. This frustrated him because, in his own words, he wasn’t doing anything special and it shouldn’t be seen that way. Fathers should hang with their kids because they love them, they have a responsibility to do so, and so on. There is something for me here that is the same about trying to think about this/ do this differently. There should be no extra credit and no great applause. Ideally, when each of us lives our own lives, this is what we do – figure out our stuff and try to change it.
I hope we are living through the last days of extreme capitalism and hierarchy. Through globalization new levels of exploitation have been made possible. May we be awakened to the harm down to brown people all over the planet. As primates and homo sapiens we, historically and maybe biologically, like hierarchy and feel comfortable with it. But I believe our task in this day and age is to flatten out hierarchies, beginning with white privilege. Glad white people are taking this on. We need a White Noise group here in Milwaukee WI. We started a mixed race group meeting monthly to take on this work. We struggle with not putting the burden on poc, and getting white people to take more responsibility.
Thank you, Susan, for your article and your honesty and your intentionality. And for everyone else who commented and clarified. I wanted to ask Susan a couple of logistical questions about your White Noise group. How often do you meet? Do you have a stated topic each time, or does the conversation just happen? Do you do any reading/discussing of books or articles, like a book club? What have been some of the best questions or topics brought up? Any practical help you could give would be greatly appreciated! Thanks again.
Stephanie, thank you for your questions. Let’s see, we meet once a month, although we stopped for awhile over the summer due to childcare crazinesses. We get together usually on a Saturday or Sunday morning for three hours. We have an informal blog that is just for the group – on the blog we post different articles we have found, reflections, topics for eventual conversation. We sometimes read books and talk about them. We brainstorm subjects. We try and keep it practical and straight up and not abstract and ungrounded. In the coming year, our intent is to continue reading but to also do more with the kids and not just adults, plus to do more that is action-oriented. We’ve talked about the holidays, the ways in which having children brings you more deeply into your biological family and what to do when your family’s racism comes up – strategies for dealing with it that honor the fact that these are your children’s grandparents/aunts/uncles AND that their racism is never ok. That has been really helpful for all of us. We have looked at children’s books and looked for books that give examples of white resistance but in a way that is not about the white hero “saving” people of color. This is the hardest to find because most books about white resistance show the white person as a hero or super special. We have talked about writing some books ourselves. In terms of practical help, what kind would you like? One of the things we are committed to as a group is to continue to support others to set up their own groups as we believe that part of the strength of white supremacy is how easy it is for us white folks to not pay attention, to relax into our own racism and to forget forget forget. We are also committed to finding more ways to put our shit out there, in appropriate ways (we hope) so that the work does not become segregated as another flavor of white supremacy. This is a hard one to figure out. We have noticd how much having children makes our worlds smaller, how much easier it is to understand why some people become more conservative after having children/more focused on protecting “their own”" rather than living more broadly. For all of those reasons, we look for ways to work against the cocooning that white privilege, parenting and aging can sometimes bring together. And that includes finding practical ways to help others so let me know what kind of practical help makes sense to you.
Peggy – I so completely agree with you. Particularly on the relationship between capitalism and white supremacy. I am grateful for moments like the US Social Forum and other spaces where a literal new world is being imagined and, in some very small and beginning ways, experienced. Thank you for your comments.
Susan,
I wonder if you and your group have ever used (or come across) the Anti-Bias Curriculum for preschool and kindergarten.
Yes, it’s geared toward educators, not parents, but the principles are great, and they work best when families commit to the idea of ending bias and recognizing privilege.
It sounds like you’ve done a lot of the work that the curriculum recommends, but I think it’s a very valuable resource.
The textbook is _The Anti Bias Curriculum: Tools for Empowering Young Children_ and it’s by Louise Derman-Sparks
It was developed in the mid-80′s, so some things feel a little bit dated, but the principles are strong and definitely still relevant.
Thanks for a really interesting and thought provoking piece!
Kat: Thank you for your post about Sparks’ work. I actually work with an organization called aMaze that creates a “families all matter” curriculum that was initially deeply influenced by Sparks’ work. Thanks for the shout out.
Susan:
Very cool. Of all of the early childhood education classes that I’ve had to take for work, that one has made the biggest impact in how I think, interact and teach.
wowza! i read susan’s article a bit ago and stumbled upon all of the comments tonite. many of them have my head spinning and i’ll have to toss em around up there for a bit to make any heads or tails of them.
but, i value susan’s parenting commitment to raise a white child that is aware of her whiteness and it’s privilege and power. i strongly believe and observe that too often white parents do not discuss race with their kids which perpetuates so many of the the problems with racism. it raises white folks that can’t honestly confront, questions, or talk about race which fuels many stereotypes, racism, and privilege.
i’m biracial (b&w) and didn’t grow up in a home or community where race was talked about much. but being the odd one out (lived in MN for 30+ years) i saw the world in shades of color and wanted those colors to have a voice. as a parent of a biracial son i loved that i have been able to give him a voice to talk about race. he’s able to see the colors, learn the history, recognize differences, but most importantly articulate all that he’s seeing and processing regarding race. it’s been a beautiful thing to watch evolve and we’ve been doing it since day one.
thanks again susan for adding your voice to this discourse!
hey quendy, it’s fun to find you on here!
It wasn’t until I had a child that I started thinking so hard about my own childhood and the way I see the world. It wasn’t until I started listening to and reading Web sites like this one and the words of friends of mine whom I met through blogging that I realized my life was really different because I’m white.
I grew up in a bubble. There was one Mexican-American family in my small town, and otherwise, everyone was not only white but also Scandinavian or German.
After my daughter was born, I realized I only referenced race when speaking of nonwhites. At first, I tried to also refer to them as “tall” or “dark-haired,” thinking that would make things better. Then I realized it might be easier to just note everyone’s race. “She’s tall and white.” I get a lot of funny looks when I say this about a white woman in my mostly white workplace.
I saw your link to the article about white students reacting with fear to neutral black male faces, and I remembered how I reacted physically to any brown man in an airport after 9/11. It wasn’t rational and it wasn’t right. I reminded myself of all the Indian men I work with, kept repeating to myself “not dangerous. Just like Sreedhar.”
You turn on the news, and you see coverage of young black men. It’s not balanced. It can be counteracted. Every time I see a negative story about someone who’s not white, I remind myself of a negative story about a white person (they seem to commit most of the serial killings) and positive stories about people of all races.
Historically, white people did a lot of bad things to folks of other races. Historically, Americans have bullied other countries. I believe white parents of white children should teach their kids the truth about the past and challenge them to be better, to be just and kind to everyone they meet. To realize fear shouldn’t be connected to a skin color, nor should love. Fear and love should be case-by-case, and every person they meet deserves individual attention and analysis.
Is it possible to deprogram all of these messages in one generation? I doubt it. I know most of my white friends don’t think about race. I wasn’t raised to think about race. I do it now because I want to figure out what I can possibly do to make the world better, one effort at a time.
It seems impossible to discuss race without affronting someone, and I’m sure I’ve done so in some way here, but I believe strongly we have to continue the dialogue no matter how painful and fraught with possible misunderstandings it may be. I thought long and hard before commenting because I didn’t want to make anyone mad, but then I decided being honest about my upbringing and my current evolution is probably more helpful. I know I’m not aware in the slightest of what it’s like to be anything other than white or middle-class or college-educated. I just want to be the best white, middle-class, college-educated person I can possibly be. And I want my daughter to recognize (and not in a “you eat that food don’t you know there are starving kids in Africa” sort of way) that she’s a very lucky little girl and she should always remember not everyone had her cushy life before she forms judgments about anyone.
Susan…thank you for your honesty. Simply teach your daughter to treat other people the way she wants to be treated. This is a rule that I try to live by.
I’m biracial. Some of the statements here bother me. I don’t believe in white guilt, but it bothers me when certain people miss the point.
Andrea…you made some very good points. I agree with some of what you said, but I’m floored by the rest. Who is saying that you should feel guilty because you’re white? No one here is saying that. If you’re referring in some way to Kavita’s comment, then maybe it’s because there is some painful truth to what she said. You should never be ashamed of who you are, but there should be some attempt to understand the struggles of other people on a deeper level. It isn’t about you.
As to praising White children for having certain physical attributes…there’s nothing wrong with telling a little boy that he has pretty blue eyes and that he’s cute. But you should be aware that children of color also need compliments and reinforcement that they, too, are beautiful. Like Susan said, the world is fine with white people as it is. Blond hair and blue eyes are considered to be the ideal beauty in this society. Minority children need to be told that their dark eyes and various skin colors are gorgeous. Little black girls need to be told that they have pretty hair…because most people will work to destroy a Black girl’s self-esteem by attacking her appearance in that way. They need to know that you don’t have to be white or anything else to be OK.
I don’t believe in praising people strictly on the basis of appearance anyway. Children benefit more by being told that they are smart, talented, creative, funny, caring, etc. Being called cute is just icing on the cake. This is not a personal attack…please don’t be offended.
Jane…Jennifer beat me to it. She spoke her mind more eloquently than I could have done. All I have to say is, are you kidding me?! Wow…talk about defensive. If you knew the history of colonialism and institutionalized racism throughout the world, you wouldn’t be so quick with that knee-jerk reaction.
I agree, some minorities aren’t very nice to white people. However, you missed the point of Susan’s post and started making all these claims without providing sources to back it up. No one is denying that certain European groups have had their share of hardships. With that said, you overlook the point of this post…that white privilege is real. White supremacy is real. Bigotry is real. Racism is real. And we need to do something about it.
Canada needs a White Noise, especially in the Suburban towns (in which I live in.) There is a lot of racist people in my school and they’re all annoying, and are hard to rationalize with (not that anyone tries) since they’re middle-schoolers (which I am also.) I’m pretty sure all of them are aware of that they are being racist, most of them are white, but some of the “POC” are being somewhat racist to their own race as well. Schools should really pay more attention to this, especially my school; the only time a student got in trouble for being racist is when it was a substitute and he was a guy. My normal teacher is a lady and she’s not that good at this (probably since she doesn’t have any kids and she’s like 30 something, not sure if that means anything though) my school is kind of messed up, and not many people are aware of this (specially adults, I think they are trying to ignore most of the stupid comments of the children.) There was this one time we went on a field trip to this place to paint these banners we drew and stuff, and this guy was being racist, and the lady that was helping me paint (because I was slow and time was running out) heard his comment and I’m pretty sure she became a little stiff (the way you do when you’re uncomfortable, etc.) but she didn’t say anything (supposing it wasn’t her place and she is also white. She also praised him when he helped us paint, because the teacher asked him to, and he wasn’t very good at it either.) Then, when we got back to our classroom, the teacher praised us and said we were responsible and stuff, if only she knew (which she might of, but didn’t say anything.) And they say that this school is good, etc. too.
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Greetings:
I just recently had the good fortune to read this article, and I want to offer my appreciation to the authors. I am not white, and I am amazed sometimes of the level of ignorance most white people hold about themselves – what being white means. I applaud your efforts to work within your family to enlighten yourselves, and also your courage to share because you’ve encouraged me to allow for change, in my mind.
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