written by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Cloudscome
You’ve probably heard in the news lately about the Valley Swim club outside Philadelphia. They are a private swim club in a mostly white suburban area. The management of the club contracted with a city kid’s day camp to have the campers come and swim in the pool once a [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Cloudscome
Weaving a Family: Untangling Race and Adoption by Barbara Katz Rothman. Beacon Press, 2005.
Rothman is a professor of sociology at Baruch College, CUNY. She’s written several other books on motherhood, giving birth, race, and gender. In Weaving a Family Rothman talks about her own experience as a white mother of three [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Cloudscome
When I was a child we always put out the Creche a few weeks before Christmas. Part of the anticipation of the coming day was looking forward to nestling the tiny little baby Jesus in his spot in the manger. We read the stories of Elizabeth and Mary hearing news of [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Cloudscome
I have been trying to write a post about how we come to know white privilege. In particular I am wondering how to talk to other white people about it when they say things like “I don’t believe in white privilege.” I am really stuck on how to unpack that statement [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Cloudscome
We were standing waist deep in the water of the community pool on a hot July afternoon. I was holding Buddy Boy, my 23 month old adopted black son in my arms. I wasn’t the only white mother with brown kids in the pool, but I was one of the few. [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Cloudscome

When I was in third grade we were living in a working class suburb of Cleveland. My school was about half Black and half White, with some Asian kids too. My parents bought a house in a neighborhood about a mile away so I had to change schools yet again for fourth grade. When I told my friends that I would be going to the other elementary school in the district they said,

“Oooh, you are going to Westwood? Those kids are tough over there. They carry guns to school!”

I was scared silly. Then school started and I went to Westwood and started making new friends. When I told my new friends that I had come from the other school they said,

“Ooooh! You came from Eastwood? Those kids are tough over there. They carry guns and knives to school!”

I had to laugh, which made them think I was even tougher. It was an Aha! moment for me. People are just scared of what is different or distant from them. There are tough kids and nice kids all over and you can’t believe what they say about each other.