Conversations about race are difficult. It’s a topic that’s so difficult, and filled with pain, division and complexity that many adults do everything they can to avoid them. Many white parents feel that the topic of race is one that can wait until their kids are teenagers—if it’s necessary at all. They’d like to prolong the time of innocence for their kids, free of racial strife and division.
are on the rise, I regularly hear from white parents who realize they need to talk to their kids about race, but they aren’t sure how to start.Your kids are not “colour-blind” I’ll never forget the first time I realized how terrified some white parents were of acknowledging race. I was a teenager, working at my local bookstore during the holiday season. As the checkout line grew, the chatter from customers combined with the endless loop of and the Christmas music over the speaker system and made for a cacophony of sound. There was one kid standing with his parents in the long line. He was fidgety and tired of waiting.
Soon, he had similar questions for his teachers and his friends. And as they all awkwardly tried to figure out how to avoid discussing race, my son became more upset. He knew he was different. And he knew that he was missing from most TV shows, books, movies and video games. And nobody would even acknowledge it, let alone tell him why. He was being gaslit by adults everywhere, and it was doing him real harm.