[Editor’s note: Not surprisingly, pop icon Michael Jackson has come up more than once in ARP discussions of race, self-esteem and Eurocentric beauty standards. How does one explain to children a young, black man seeming to morph into a white woman? How does one explain to children an icon of black music–a Motown star no less–that seems [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent Columnist Liz Dwyer
A couple of weeks ago, I was at someone’s home talking with another woman who was also a guest. As we talked, my two sons were hovering around, quietly doing their usual Power Rangers imitation. My six year-old popped over to demonstrate some of his moves for me, and this [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent Columnist Liz Dwyer, originally posted at Los Angelista’s Guide To The Pursuit Of Happiness
I have worked with almost 100 schools across Los Angeles and Compton over the past 8 years and I definitely have seen that race is a factor. If I take the top five lowest performing schools in Los Angeles, [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent Columnist Liz Dwyer
Thirty years have passed since the name “Kunta Kinte” was etched into my memory. The miniseries Roots was my first real education about the chattel slavery that held this nation in its grip for so many generations. I vividly remember sitting on the couch in my family’s den, [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent Columnist Liz Dwyer
I grew up being called, “white sugar” by my maternal grandmother. My cousin was the “brown sugar”. My grandmother would good-naturedly say that white sugar was the sweetest. Needless to say, my browner-skinned cousin didn’t like me very much.
I was the white sugar because I’m the child of an Irish-American [...]