[Editor's note: When I read the recent NYT article on interracial college roomates, I knew it was an issue that Anti-Racist Parent should tackle. Like many who have commented on the piece, I found it facile, simplistic. As someone who attended a majority white Midwestern college as a student of color, I found that my presence [...]

written by Anti-Racist Parenting columnist Liza Talusan
The other day, I took my children to a birthday party for their friend, Lucas, who was turning 3 years old. Lucas’s mom is Korean and his dad is Japanese.
While spending some quality time with my potty-learning daughter in the bathroom, she and I got into a conversation about [...]

[Editor's note: On Monday, we published Jackie Morgan MacDougall's response to the controversy surrounding her year-old MomLogic post about an incident where her three-year-old son asked why her co-worker's face was brown. Today, we have a response from Morgan MacDougall's co-worker, Winter Johnson.
This, I think, is an illustration of why conversations about race can get [...]

[Editor's note: A few weeks ago, we discussed an old MomLogic post that was newly heating up the parenting cybercommunity. In it, a mother talked about how she handled a situation where her child asked why a co-worker's skin was brown. She handled it by asking the co-worker to explain. For that, the author was [...]

[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 [...]

[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 [...]

The blog, Stuff White People Do, which is celebrating its one-year anniversary, has re-posted a very interesting article about learned whiteness–the beliefs and values that blogger Macon D (who is white) says are consciously and unconsciously taught to white people, beginning in childhood.
First, Macon D quotes Lilliam Smith, who in 1949 published a searing memoir about growing [...]

[Editor's note: According to the New York Times: "A judge has rejected Madonna's request to adopt a second child from Malawi because of a requirement that prospective parents live in the southern African nation for at least 18 months, another judge and a lawyer said Friday."]
by Carmen Van Kerckhove, originally published at CNN’s Anderson Cooper [...]

written by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Paula, crossposted from Heart, Mind and Seoul

During my first real job as an adult, I worked for a woman who had a theory about the people in our company who (for whatever reason) didn’t pull their own weight.  She hypothesized that when it came right down to it, there are only ever two [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Deesha Philyaw
My kids have sent me over the moon with joy.
Is it because they are doing well in school? They are, but that’s not why I’m thrilled.
Is it because their rooms are tidy? Please…
Is it because they are squabbling less and being more patient with each other? Pshaw!
The [...]

In ARP Links yesterday, Elena Perez pointed us to her post on the California NOW Web site:

It struck me that, although her family is racially diverse, Millie doesn’t see it.  Maybe that’s a function of many of us having lighter skins, or maybe that’s a function of the fact that we live out our ethnicities, [...]

Dear Anti-Racist Parent:
Do you have suggestions for children’s Bibles (or Christian-themed books) that have realistic and non-racist portrayals of Biblical characters and children represented in them? Any thoughts on the Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Heidi C.
From the Editor:
I am really out of my element on this question, but I [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Maegan “la Mala” Ortiz
I live along what is arguably the most diverse subway line, in the most diverse borough, of the most diverse city. This has provided me with more teaching moments than I would like. Lessons that I knew I would have to teach my 10 year old daughter [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent Columnist Jae Ran Kim
A few months ago my family reached a new milestone in our lives as a multi-racial family. My 14 year-old daughter has her first “boyfriend.” I have to admit that I have long been very curious about who my kids would choose to date. In our home, we have [...]

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Paula, originally published at Heart, Mind and Seoul
Let’s say you and your young child decide to go on a picnic at a park that happens to be within walking distance from where you live. You carefully pack up all of the necessary items that you require for your outing and [...]

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 Deesha Philyaw
Like a lot of Gen-Xers, I lived and breathed Sesame Street back in the day. By first grade, I’d been identified by my school as “a smart kid,” and adult friends of the family regularly asked me, probably rhetorically, “How’d you get so smart?” I had a proud [...]

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 Paula
Perhaps it’s just me – but as a parent of a biracial daughter and an Asian son – it’s far from my dream as their mother to have either of them enter into their adulthood thinking, believing, announcing and celebrating that they are white (or have our daughter claiming a white-only [...]

Dear Anti-Racist Parent,
I am a white parent and have two sons (ages 6 and 8). I am committed to doing all I can to raise them in an anti-racist environment. Education is critical to this goal.
However, I have been disturbed by how both of my son’s pre-school teachers began teaching the history of [...]