[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 Liza Talusan
I guess I never really thought of myself as an anti-racist parent, but rather an educator about race and culture. As the Director of Intercultural Affairs at a small Catholic college in Massachusetts, much of my focus has been on raising awareness about the complexity of race, culture, power and [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Meera Bowman-Johnson, originally published at Not the Nanny

My mother always told me not to stare, but I soon realized that’s not always possible. So I decided that at the very least, if one must silently judge another, it absolutely should not be done blatantly. And never, ever, with one’s mouth hanging [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Lisa Marie
I come to Anti Racist Parent as a black woman, as a transracial adoptee and as a woman who recognizes parts of myself as a mother to my friends, my family, my youth, and my students – while at the same time, I have no biological children.
I was born [...]

Dear Anti-Racist Parent,
My daughter’s preschool teacher had asked me last month if we had any preference for classroom books on family diversity, and I said I had no preference there, since she expressed no two-mom-related issues. But that she’d been very upset earlier in the week, and said that she didn’t want to go out [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Dawn Friedman
Recently I wrote on my blog about trying to find an African American Polly Pocket for my 3-year old daughter. My efforts were only slightly successful – I did find a brown-skinned Polly, kind of. But she could more easily stand in for a white girl with an olive complexion. [...]

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 Natasha Sky
I hear one question from strangers more often than any other: “Are they all yours?” The second most common question goes something like this, “Are some of your children adopted?” Long ago I stopped feeling that these types of questions are innocuous–they are the most common and some of the [...]

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 Sue Lyons-Joell
In 1893, Vogue magazine published the Kate Chopin story, “Desiree’s Baby”. The melodramatic tragedy set in antebellum Louisiana involves a foundling mother, her planter husband, and their newborn son. Desiree drowns her child and herself when her planter husband rejects her for having the “taint” of black heritage. The baby [...]

by guest contributor Tiffany Pridgen
As a child I was never specifically instructed on race or culture by anyone in my family, and I’m certain that is fairly unusual for someone from a family of color. The truth is, we just weren’t all that interesting as far as culture goes: the term “white bread” comes to [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Amber
Before we traveled to China to adopt our younger daughter, I expected that a white mom carrying an obviously Asian baby would attract a lot of attention from the locals. In the city where we met my new daughter L, few Chinese are even aware that international adoption exists. [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent Columnist, Karen Walrond, originally published at Chookooloonks

Back in August, a commenter asked what I thought of this article. It was written by a Lisa Lerner, a Jewish-American woman who adopted transracially from India, and who, as it turns out, ended up having trouble handling the fact that her daughter was dark: “even [...]