When our children talk about skin color,
we parents don’t have to be afraid to engage in their conversations.
Actually we can let them lead the way. When children talk about their
friend’s skin being brown, peach, pink, etc., they are simply noticing
the obvious.
But parents have been shamed into
shunning conversations about skin color, opting instead to embrace the
seemingly more safe and politically correct colorblind approach.
Colorblindess—the notion, the theory, the
language or lack thereof—has made parents a false promise. If we don’t
see skin color (or talk about it), racism will go away. I wish it were
true. But it’s just not.
Research shows that because children are
developmentally prone to in-group favoritism, avoiding conversations
about race and skin tone will not produce color-blindness. Instead, the
colorblind approach will rob them/us of language and power to address
race-based issues when the opportunity presents itself.
The observation of skin tone is not
inherently connected to the social political construct of race. So, in
our family, we empower our children by giving them language and freedom
to talk about skin tones and other obvious differences. For example, the
ethnic make up in our family is white dad, black mom, and three
multi-ethnic little girls. We have given ourselves a language and
narrative to acknowledge our five different ‘hues of brown’ (and five
different hair textures) without using race terminology like ‘white’ and
‘black.’
Having conversations about skin tone void
of shame and discomfort in their early years has established a safe
space and frame work for educating them about the complexities of race
ideology. Our then seven year old articulated her understanding of race
as a terrible idea created a long time ago, that if not for Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr., would have made it impossible for her to be born! She
expressed anger about the invention and existence of race and racism.
(Yay! We want anger to be pointed towards the idea and legacy of race,
not towards a group of people.)
I was amazed at how she formulated this position. She had read Meet Addy: An American Girl series, Who Was Martin Luther King, Jr.?, Who Was Abraham Lincoln?, both of the Who Was…? series, to name of few. She had lots of questions and I gave her age appropriate answers.
As parents, we can not allow fear to keep
us from having these conversations. Shunning comments about skin tone
and race in the warmth of our loving homes, may leave our children
susceptible to the conditioning of institutionalized racial narratives.
Let’s empower our children to create a more beautiful world.
Here are a few related resources.
- Summary of Nurture Shock: Chapter 3 – Why White Parents Don’t Talk about Race
- You can find the partial chapter online.
- CNN. Anderson Cooper. A Look At Race Relations Through A Child’s Eyes.
