How and When You Should Tell Your Children About Racism?
A fellow blogger inspired me to write this piece. Their story can be found on Medium entitled “When You Have To Tell Your Mixed-Race Son That Adults Are Racists.” It’s a heartbreaking story that many black people face. My adult daughter and I returned to the US about the same time. I came to work in corporate America, and she for college. My daughter grew up outside the US, and I spent most of my formative years in the Caribbean. It was a slow realization for both of us that we had entered a place where people’s beliefs made them irrational and dangerous.
First signs of our ignorance: she asked me why most janitors and security guards in every building we visited were black in Atlanta, Georgia. During her upbringing, she saw that most people around her were a mix of everybody. Her first pediatrician was a black man. Her mother’s doctor was a black woman. My doctor was a white-appearing man. But he was from a culture where he would be offended if you told him he was white.
When my daughter went to a clinic for vaccinations, flew on a plane, met people in government, and saw her parents, friends, and colleagues, there were people of all races and ethnicity. They had varied accents, and many spoke multiple languages. Her classmates and teachers were also diverse, and while, in the Caribbean, she competed against a particular girl in her class for attention, none of these interactions were stained with race.
Her racial experience included being at college with a group of her multi-ethnic friends walking on a campus road at midnight, only to be accosted by a car filled with young white men asking them whether they voted for Trump. This incident was in Ohio, so they instinctively ran for cover, realizing they were in danger.
My daughter speaks at least four languages. Her classmates accused her of faking knowing other languages. They also ridiculed her for her accent and claimed she sounded white when she talked. A colleague told me the same thing. See a link to an article that describes that experience after you read this. If you believe in race, you think it has traits, just like the pseudoscientist taught and wrote about.
These traits include accents, the ability to travel to other countries, the capability to learn multiple languages, and being different from what is considered the norm for black people. Whatever the characteristic one latches on to, it must prove the superiority of whiteness over blackness. Anything otherwise must be a lie, even when it’s obviously true!
My daughter said that her mother and I never prepared her for racism in America. Sadly, I had to admit, I knew about it but never imagined the extent of the vitriol and dedication to something as unreal as whiteness. Fast forward years later, and I ended up stress-induced grinding my teeth to the point of breakage because of the racist attacks I was getting daily in the corporate world.
I wrote a book about it to stay calm because I felt like I was bleeding my soul from the arrows of microaggressions and assaults. I could not even find a culturally competent therapist at the time. Luckily, my daughter did where she was living and got some help.
We live on this planet, so racism still impacts us. We had some inkling of the damage a belief in whiteness has caused. I can only imagine a child’s pain with their strong sense of fairness and no idea that humans can be so illogical and cruel. Plus, it’s hard for a child to fathom why this makes sense in an adult mind. After all, they are supposed to be smarter than kids!
My daughter and I have decided, albeit separately, to work towards enjoying life and at our desired pace and time to push back against whiteness whenever it rares its monstrous head. We will not allow white-race-believing people to bully us into solving racism while they do nothing for a belief they invented and still benefit from.
The idea that they would lie and claim that black people are “race-baiting” while they enjoy the benefits of their whiteness should never be supported. They must work to be anti-racist too. Besides, as studies show, as I pointed out in the book, that belief in whiteness is slowly but surely consuming its hosts. Anyone who pursues whiteness may benefit in the short run, but they are slowly eroding their core beliefs of moral uprightness and saviorism.
Protect your child, and keep writing and talking on this subject to educate all who will listen. Educate yourself with those willing to write and talk about it to give yourself the language to talk to your child about racism. I know we want our kids to enjoy their innocence, but the world will not allow that. Start the discussion early, when relevant, and when the topic comes up. White parents must also talk to their children about racism before society imprisons their core beliefs. Remaining silent is not an option if we are to achieve real peace.
Read my other article on a similar subject.
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