I am an African American mother of a precocious and wonderful 3-year-old girl. Recent events in her after school childcare setting have caused me to begin to really think about what kind of cultural appreciation/awareness I should be explicitly giving to her.
Liz Dwyer’s post titled: My son is the only black kid in his class…or is he? really struck a chord with me. I am in the midst of assembling my daughter’s summer enrichment before her next cycle of Montessori education begins in the fall, and I was wondering if Liz, or any of you, had any ideas on how I could impress to my daughter the idea that race truly is a social construct. Any suggestions or input would be greatly appreciated.
Best,
E. Williams
From co-editor Tami:
I wonder if it is too early for this part of anti-racist training. Heck, some adults can’t grasp the idea of race as a social construct. But, more than that, too often the “race is a social construct” thing becomes a barrier to people acknowledging and addressing racism and cultural differences. Of course, I’m not saying that you would encourage your child to do this. I’m really just sort of parsing aloud why something about making this the focus of a three-year-old’s anti-racist education feels uncomfortable to me.
I think the best anti-racist education for young children is simply immersion in a diversity of cultures, as often as possible, through personal relationships, media, activities, travel, etc. I think personal engagement is especially important and the fastest way for anyone to absorb that we’re really all the same underneath our skin. It also provides a path to correct the idea that all dark brown people are black.
For older kids and adults, one resource I love is National Geographic’s Genographic Project. Spencer Wells and his team are mapping the human journey out of Africa to other continents around the world. The project illustrates how humanity began as one group and evolved and changed through migration patterns. It’s heady stuff, but informative and fascinating. There is an Educator’s Guide to the project and teachers resources, which can help explain this process to children.
Readers, co-editors–what do you say? Am I off-base in my answer?
Tami
What was the age when you figured out that tomatoes were a fruit, and not just a vegetable? Certainly not 3.
It’s also great to talk about how you can sort things differently, and look at how to sort things generally, and even to talk about how in Britain, they call the light on the bottom of the stoplight blue, and in Japan, certain shades we call green or green-blue are called blue and cannot be called green. It helps flexible thinking, which is important in being able to go against the social norms of racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, etc.
That and lots of talk about difference, as well as exposure to it. I wouldn’t go trying to add those two up until the logic circuits come online fully, say about age 8 or 9.
T.
I don’t think it’s too early to start teaching that race is a social construct. I can think of two methods that you could modify based on what you think your child would understand.
1. Point out how Mr. A and Mrs. B (of the same race) both have (whatever racialized phenotype they have in common) but Mrs. B and Mrs. C (of different races) are both tall and all three of them have one mouth, one nose, etc. Explain how they’re more alike than not despite how they’re racialized as different.
or
2. Buy a bouquet of different colored roses (but the same breed.) Tell your child, “These flowers are all different colors, but that doesn’t mean they’re different types of flowers. They’re all the same kind. People also come in many different beautiful colors. Sometimes people may tell you that different colors of people are different types of people – and those types are called races – but that’s not really true. (You can explain why when she’s older. At three just leave it at that or use the explanation in suggestion #1.) People come in different colors but they’re not different types.
Then, to address Tami’s valid concern, go on to say that some people not only think that people come in racial types but also mistreat them because of their racial type and that this is wrong. You need to note this is not an equal opportunity failing — we live in a system that privileges whiteness.
However, I would push back against this part, “I think the best anti-racist education for young children is simply immersion in a diversity of cultures, as often as possible, through personal relationships, media, activities, travel, etc. ” Tim Wise, white anti-racist activist, says racism will continue, “So long as diversity talk avoids issues of power and privilege, opting instead for cultural tourism.” As I point out to people – colonizers and slave catchers did plenty of travel, the antebellum south was quite multicultural – and slaveowners even appreciated African American cooking, dance, music, etc. Respectfully, I’d say diversity, like love, is not enough.
I think there is a difference between being colorblind and talking about race as a social construct. It’s a powerful social construct for sure, but there are no biological differences between racial groups, or more accurately, there are as many differences within racial groups as there are between racial groups, hence no biological categories of race.
We talk about race a lot in our house and talk about colors of skin, etc. My three year old is still talking about the colors of skin for the most part but my five year old has started to get more of the nuance.
There’s a picture in “Shades of Black” of a little girl with blue eyes and light tan skin. When my 5 y/o saw her she said “she’s not Black”. Perfect opportunity to talk about cultural identification, etc.
I think Moth is right. Kids as young as 2 can “match” and see color and shape and size. Helping them to see that things all of the same color are of the same species/quality/product is where I start that conversation always (I have a 2, 3 and 4 year old.)
For older child resources, I teach high school and I think there are lots of great ways to talk to kids and to show kids that race is a social construct. The PBS Jazz Series (1st video: http://www.pbs.org/jazz/) integrates music and the development of culture/arts/race and segregation together. I know that I have add some fantastic conversations with 7th graders that really understand how race was a social construct. Another resource that I have been using with older students is the PBS Series on “Race: The Power of Illusion” (http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm) The whole series is long and extensive, but the 1st few chapters really lay out some of the first documents of race as a social construct.
Those are from teaching perspective, but the parenting perspective can be more intimidating to me – younger children, lack of interest, lack of investment by a toddler/preschooler. “The Skin You Are IN’ by Michael Tyler presents a really basic viewpoint of talking with toddlers about skin color.
I wonder if this idea of teaching about race as a social construct ignores the reality of race, as in the realness of racial identity, especially for Black children. I think that it may be more valuable to instill a strong and proud racial identity in Black children, one that shows the diversity among Black folks, explains the history of Blackness, especially for young children, rather than attempt to get into the abstraction of race. As some have already stated, many grown folks can not understand the social construction of race, and while 3 year olds certainly “see” race in terms of difference and hierarchy, I don’t believe they can understand the historical and sociological construct of “race.”
When my daughter was that age, it was simply and matter-of-factly noticing that people look different on the outside. AND, reinforcing that “it’s not what you look like on the outside, but who you are in the inside, that’s important.” ( I reinforce that along with teaching that fancy clothes or toys are also “outside” things that aren’t as important as who you are on the inside.)
If you think she’ll be able to understand, you can also add, “sometimes people think that you might be nice, or mean, because of what you look like on the outside, but that’s silly because how could you possibly know what a person is like on the inside by looking just at the outside?”
As my daughter got older, I’ve talked more about historical, as well as current, racial strife, and also about the biology of skin color variability.
I think a false dichotomy is being posed between teaching a kid race is a social construct and teaching about racism and racial ID. I say – do it all. You just teach that race is not real culture is – Samburus, Garifunas, and African Americans are all racialized as black yet they have different cultures. That’s when you bust out the picture books, head to the museums, start befriending people – what Tami said really well.
I personally think the adults who can’t understand the social construction of race can’t BECAUSE nobody taught them about it when they were little.
I don’t think kids need to know the historical/sociological construct of race at three – they just need to know that race is a construct – you can add more details as they grow. At the same time, I’m not sure what the “history of Blackness” means or is unless you teach how race has been historically constructed.
I’ve been struggling with this a lot with my son, who just turned 5 (we’re white), since I’ve sort of tried to hit a developmentally-appropriate medium. Kids that age have very limited ability to think abstractly, so the notion of social construction is just gibberish, and it’s pretty hard to deconstruct a concept that they haven’t even constructed yet. At 3, I think I was mostly going with the “everyone is unique in their own special way and we should always be nice to everybody” approach. At 4 and 5, I’m making a more proactive effort to give him a fairly simple but accurate vocabulary of racial and ethnic terms and understanding of cultural diversity and the histories and cultures of different groups–in bite-sized chunks, as it comes up in the course of our daily life, reading, travel, etc. Most basically, I’ve explained that people tend to inherit the way they look from a combination of their parents and grandparents and ancestors farther back, and that people whose ancestors come from different parts of the world sometimes look different from each other and sometimes describe themselves in terms of how they look or where their ancestors came from. He thinks it is silly that people are called “white” and “black” when we are so obviously varying shades of orange and brown–and I tend to agree–but at least he’ll understand what the terms refer to. I try to keep it simple but historically accurate, and to acknowledge (in not-too-scary ways) the sad reality that some people are mean to people just because they look or sound or act differently, while emphasizing that that is very dumb and mean, and that it is good that we are all alike in some ways and different in some ways, and that it is always important to be kind and fair to everyone.
d’oh! I wrote a long comment and then accidentally ate it.
I disagree that young children do not have “logic circuits” or that any discussion fo this will be “gibberish” before a certain age. All children are different. Mine are 6 and 8 and concepts of racial construct, ethnicity, global disparities, privilege and power have been taking place in our home for a number of years.
@Moth, who wrote:
I personally think the adults who can’t understand the social construction of race can’t BECAUSE nobody taught them about it when they were little.
I agree with this (and actually everything else you said).
I encourage parents to stop talking or take a different tactic if one’s child “tunes out” or seems fearful. Unfortunately kids can be overloaded and apathy or depression can result. I don’t see this is as a reason to shelter them, just proceed with caution according to what you know about your child.
Sidenote, there is a concept some have that you can simply “lecture values” into a child. Things aren’t that simple (although of course discussing values is one facet of raising kids) given the child(ren) see your way of life and learn from how you live (not what you say); they are exposed to larger culture and most children in this country spend most of their waking hours in school, away from parental influence.
E. Williams, the Institute for Humane Education (website and blog http://www.humaneeducation.org/ and http://humaneconnectionblog.blogspot.com/, resp.) may be a good resource. I just added them to my feed reader and read one of Zoe Weil’s books; I’m a fan.
Teaching that race isn’t “real” I think is a big mistake. It is real to a lot of people, myself included, social construct or not. And I’m getting a PhD in sociology, and study race and children and education. Calling something a social construction means nothing more than saying its a social fact rather than a biological fact; it means its a fact that is shaped in time and space and not fixed. But that doesn’t make it less real.
When I say the history of Blackness, I meant Black history, history of the Black Diaspora. Understanding race in America means understanding racial hierarchy. Understanding the racial hierarchy means understanding where it came from, and why. Read books about slavery, about civil rights. To understand that not only Black people were treated poorly, read books about the Holocaust, about Native Americans. To be anti-racist, I believe, is to understand the racial hierarchy, racial oppression and to resist it. And especially for racial minorities, read books that actively celebrate the racial identity to build a positive sense of self to balance against the negative images out in the world. (For white children, this is generally unnecessary – a positive sense of whiteness is everywhere.)
@LaToya, we may have to agree to disagree but the social v. biological construction of race matters to me. It’s people who believe that race is biological who are suspectible to pseudo-science like The Bell Curve for example.
I still don’t think you can teach about the Racial hierarchy without teaching about race as a social construct – about how in Colonial America region/nation/class were more important than race. You were a Scottish highlander or lowlander, you were English or French, you were indentured or free but you weren’t white in the way we think of whiteness today and you weren’t supposed to share an interest just based on skin color. Then, when white indentured servants and black slaves started rebelling together, white elites invented whiteness as it would begin to be known – they CONSTRUCTED it. It wasn’t a self evident biological reality, it was an illusion created to make people choose melanin over class or even morals.
I see it this way – racism can easily be real without race being real. If I think there’s a monster in a lake that’s my only source of water – no, the monster isn’t real. But if I’m dirty because I don’t wash and thirsty because I don’t drink because I’m convinced the monsters there, the negative effects of my belief are real. However, the monster isn’t real because the negative effects are real. And realizing the monster isn’t real would help the negative effects to go away.
As for white kids, I think it’s important to ground them in an ethnic ID so that they don’t buy into whiteness. The most anti-racist whites I know ID as German or Albanian or whatever rather than white. I’ve also heard indigenous people say that it would do wonderful things for anti-racism if white people would start connecting to the lands and culture they are indigenous to.
Great discussion so far! I agree that when I hear “race is a social construct” I immediately brace myself for the whole colorblind nonsense. Race might not be science-based, but like Tami and LaToya said above, it is pretty real to most Americans of color. At the same time, I think what I hear Moth saying is that you don’t have to chose either teaching about racism OR teaching that race is a social construct. I believe that I can teach my son that race is a very real way that people are currently categorized in the U.S. and around the world and also teach him that the idea and concept of race was created to oppress certain groups of people, including his ancestors. Race will certainly be real to him, but I will definitely let him know that grouping people this way is not based on science, but on culture…and it originated with a desire to create differences between groups of people that just aren’t there. Right now, that just means that we talk about how:
a. Everyone has things about them that make them different from others…and everyone has things about them that they share with others (i.e. J has curly hair which is different from Mommy. But J has brown hair which is the SAME as Mommy. ALSO, Pop-Pop and Auntie have curly hair like J too!)
b. He is Black/biracial and Black people are unique and Blackness is an identity to be proud of (i.e. You are Black! Our president is Black too! Daddy is also Black. Deon is Black. Zoe is Black. You are so lucky! Some Black people have light brown skin, some have dark brown skin some have light skin that looks like Mommy’s, etc.) @ Rachel, we also read Shades of Blackness. I’m not sure he gets the concept but he says “I am Black. I am unique.” randomly to himself all the time…and that can’t be a bad thing. The other day he said to my mom, “Memere is black.” She looks at me like, “Ummm, huh?” And I said, “No, Memere is not black. But you are and Daddy is and Grandma is! And there are Black people that have blue eyes and blond hair like Memere.” I’m pretty sure he stopped listening after “no”. But, I think that’s what a lot of “education” is right now. I often feel like I’m talking to myself, but he is absorbing what I am saying, even if it is just subconsciously.
c. He is beautiful, unique, smart, and capable. His tan brown skin is beautiful and Daddy’s dark brown skin is beautiful…and Mommy’s light tan skin is beautiful when it is not burnt and peeling like it is now.
That’s as far as we go right now, but in time we’ll get to the other important things!
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