[mevertin]

The other day my first grader and I were working on his reading and sight words. He brought up Martin Luther King and asked if he made it okay for kids with "black skin." to go to school. I said yes, among other things. Then he asked " do I have to go to another school because I have black skin?" I said "no" you go to the school by your house and the color of your skin doesn't determine where you go to school. He then started talking about skin color. He said he had black skin and his brother has white skin. I told him he had brown skin because his birth parents in Guatemala had brown skin. He said " I hate my skin, I want to be white." I was shocked, but I said that skin is just like the wrapping paper on a package and people are what is inside. He asked if black and brown people are bad. I told him no, the color of your skin does not matter. Then he said he hated his hair. I told him I loved his hair and it was curly like his dad's and his big brother. Then he said he wanted to kill himself and he wanted to be white. I was almost at a loss for words. I told him you are born with your skin and you have to love what you have. This went on for about 10 minutes. then he was on to doing his reading. Yesterday I brought the discussion up with him and he said 'why are you talking about that?" I said that he had talked about it the night before. He said he wished he had a costume so he could be white. We had just picked his little brother up at school and he said "Naldo and I are the brown people in our family." I said "yes, because you were born in Guatemala and most Guatemalan people have brown skin." Naldo piped up " my skin is white." The conversation went on for a few more minutes, then they were on to Sponge Bob. I am baffled as how to deal with this. We always talk about Guatemala and adoption. We live in Western Wisconsin. Eddie attends a small elementary school . Only about 10% of the students are kids of color. In his classroom there are 2 little girls of Asian heritage and 1 boy that is biracial African-American. Some of the other elementary schools in the district have larger populations of Latino kids. I e-mailed his teacher and shared our conversation and told her she should probably revisit the MLK lesson. I'm not asking for advice as to how to make this go away, I just want some ideas,or resources for talking about this with the boys. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Mary
mom to Bobby 14, Bridget 13, Angela 11, Eddie 7 (home 2005) and Naldo 4 (home 2008)

[SKL]

Interesting, as my daughters and I recently had a similar (though lower-key) discussion.

I think the MLK discussions at school definitely brought out some kind of feelings, but it's hard to say why, since I was not there to hear what was said. In my observation, kids of all races come to school and repeat things they hear at home or on TV, so there are many varied attitudes to contend with even as young as preschool. But I think that this (KG) is the first year that the lessons were so "in-your-face" about racial differences. My kids came home last week telling me that "black" kids used to have to go to different schools from "white" kids. I am sure their minds put two and two together and, regardless of all the "we are all equal" platitutes, they think there must be some significance to skin color - and lighter is better. I kind of wish the school did not feel the need to push the racism lessons so early. I also feel the whole MLK-racism approach kind of leaves out kids who are neither "black" nor "white." But, it is what it is.

On an ongoing basis, my kids' environment is not predominantly "white" and we have had some good discussions about racial issues. But I always kind of knew that we'd have this "are brown people less" issue - and it will probably be an on-going issue.

So last night we read together a book on MLK; so I could interject my views from the standpoint of how my own kids view themselves. I'll continue to periodically discuss the issue with the help of well-chosen books and movies. And when the subject comes up, I'll be consistent and trust my kids to eventually "get" it at a deep level. I think they really aren't yet old enough to understand that what's visible isn't the point.

As for resources, you might want to check out dollslikeme.com, which has a lot of books (and videos and toys) for kids of various racial backgrounds. The nice thing about their website is that they have things organized so you can easily find books that talk directly to your unique children's needs. (Personally I would make a list from the dollslikeme.com website and then buy elsewhere or borrow from the library. I used to be a happy customer, but they won't fix a problem I had, so I'm reluctant to recommend them now.) I have a bunch of books in this category, but most of them are in my basement right now, so I can't put together a quick list.

Some movies I've watched with the girls that sparked good racism/slavery discussions have been The Littlest Rebel (Shirley Temple), The King and I (with Yul Brenner), West Side Story, and The Ten Commandments. There have probably been others, but I can't recall offhand. We have watched these together at home (most more than once), so we could discuss things privately at their level. These movies are pretty heavy for kids, but worth the effort if you can get through them.

[millie58]

L, my 2nd oldest, went through a phase where he didn't want to be black, he wanted to be brown. I told him his skin color is brown and his race is black or AA. (I go by black). I've had to reinforce that black is good for a couple of years until he finally got it. I live in a mixed neighborhood and they schools are all mixed.

[dac_cincy]

I would recommend reading "I am chocolate you are vanilla"- it is a great book on kids view skin color. it really helped me wort thru what my son was saying when he talked about skin color compared to what I was hearing filtered thru my years of experience.


But on a funny note- there is a little boy in the neighborhood who plays with my son and 2 girls of african descent. This little boy keeps telling his mom that his skin when turn brown when he gets older like the big kids in the neighborhood.

[WaitingforBrian]

MLK doesn't come up much in Ireland despite our very multiracial population but this conversation does. I have a boy and girl and my daughter , usually at times when she is not feeling confident for whatever rreason, can come out with the 'I don't want to be brown' comment.We simply say that she is brown and beautiful because she was born in Guatemala and we name all our friends from Guatemala and talk about how God makes everyone different etc. She responds well to the positive talk but I think it is just going to stay on the cards for a long time. Visits to Guatemala are also coming up in conversation in a positive way too.
My son who is 4 doesn't seem to care yet but that day will arrive as well.There is no easy answer reallly, is there.
All I can tell her is the truth, that she is beautiful, she came from a beautiful place and I am a lucky mum to have her and my son.
I just hope her confidence will continue to grow.
BTW, I have a young niece who is very white and she wants to be brown like my daughter!!!!. What can you do, Eh?
Bernie

[JustBarbara]

DS has not said he hates his skin just that he wishes he looked more like all the other Guatemalan kids he's met. I told him he has brown skin and is beautiful and the world is filled with all skin colors and then we talk about kids in his class and extended day. He also has been mentioning visiting Guatemala a lot more often now.

[mevertin]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I will check out the books and websites. The boys haven't said much the past few days, but I feel like I need to be more prepared when it comes up again. We did talk about how everyone has different skin-even among what the kids call "white people." One of my daughter's has a red-headed friend and I could tell they were really thinking how my daughter and her friend have different skin. I will also pull out their scrapbooks and look at pictures from Guatemala (foster mothers and birth mothers). Last night I kissed Eddie good night and I said " I love your brown skin" and Eddie said "mom, you are a total dork."
Mary
mom to Bobby 14, Bridget 13, Angela 11, Eddie 7 (home 2005) and Naldo 4 (home 2008)

[SKL]

Originally Posted by mevertin

Last night I kissed Eddie good night and I said " I love your brown skin" and Eddie said "mom, you are a total dork."

You must be doing something right!

[blminter]

this doesn't totally answer your question, but i like "the color of us". it relates skin color to things like honey, peanut butter, french toast, cocoa. dd is now 6y-several years ago i told her her skin looked like honey to me. she replied, well if i'm honey, you're sugar. aren't we sweet?

[alys1]

What I wonder about. I notice you folks are discussing the positives: I love your color, your color is OK, etc. But are you discussing for, thus preparing for, the likely negatives that they will encounter? Or even the types of possible negative comments/situations they will encounter?

Being white, raised by 2 white people, still my mom told us kids "You will hear people making racist comments, possibly even our relatives. (She warned us about one in particular.) You're to know they are wrong, those are old, backwards ideas. Some people haven't changed, but that doesn't make them right. In our family, we don't carry those prejudices."

I remember being about 14 and 12, in a restaurant, being sent over by our parents to another table to say "hi" to a former teacher. She made a racist comment. We told our parents what she'd said immediately... and I think it had less impact on us because 1) we'd been warned this could happen, 2) we were able to talk about it to them, as we'd talked about it before.

My stepson is 1/2 Chinese (his mom), hubs and I are CC. When he was 4, I talked to him about the fact that some Chinese ppl would think it was "wrong" for him be 1/2 CC, some CC people would think it was "wrong" for him to be 1/2 Chinese. But *both* of those ppl were wrong. No matter what they said or did, they were wrong. I wanted him to be forewarned about possible comments.

Hope this makes sense. Maybe you all are having those conversations also, and just didn't mention it.

[SKL]

Originally Posted by alys1

What I wonder about. I notice you folks are discussing the positives: I love your color, your color is OK, etc. But are you discussing for, thus preparing for, the likely negatives that they will encounter? Or even the types of possible negative comments/situations they will encounter?

Being white, raised by 2 white people, still my mom told us kids "You will hear people making racist comments, possibly even our relatives. (She warned us about one in particular.) You're to know they are wrong, those are old, backwards ideas. Some people haven't changed, but that doesn't make them right. In our family, we don't carry those prejudices."

I remember being about 14 and 12, in a restaurant, being sent over by our parents to another table to say "hi" to a former teacher. She made a racist comment. We told our parents what she'd said immediately... and I think it had less impact on us because 1) we'd been warned this could happen, 2) we were able to talk about it to them, as we'd talked about it before.

My stepson is 1/2 Chinese (his mom), hubs and I are CC. When he was 4, I talked to him about the fact that some Chinese ppl would think it was "wrong" for him be 1/2 CC, some CC people would think it was "wrong" for him to be 1/2 Chinese. But *both* of those ppl were wrong. No matter what they said or did, they were wrong. I wanted him to be forewarned about possible comments.

Hope this makes sense. Maybe you all are having those conversations also, and just didn't mention it.

Interesting, because there's been an active discussion about this on another forum, and the most popular conclusion was different. Basically for very young children, telling them that some / many people will discriminate against people with darker skin puts them on the defensive and can make them feel ugly, yucky, bad, etc. This is true even though we also tell them in the same discussion that this prejudice is ignorant. The kids get the "dark skin is undesireable" part but they don't get the "that's ignorant" part until they are more mature.

So we kind of came to the conclusion that we should first build up the child's awareness of positives in the racial context and self-love/value, before bringing up racism as potentially applied to them personally - if possible. Obviously if the child has relatives or neighbors who spout racist words around him, a different approach would be needed.

After discussing this with many colorful parents of colorful kids, I feel that the design of the MLK lesson used in my kids' KG class missed the mark. They could have done it without pointing out that the establishment sent kids with skin like __ to a lousy school and kept them from playing with "white" kids. The other part of the lesson my kids remembered was that MLK gave a speech about a wonderful "dream" and then he was shot. How dare a black guy have a dream, right? I think they could have introduced MLK in a gentler and more positive way at this age. JMHO.

[blminter]

alys1 and SKL-thanks for closing the loop. you are so right.

[TheFoxx]

OY, we just went through this ourselves! I wondered if someone said something to him about his skin color. I was laying in bed with him and he said "I don't want to be brown, I want to be white like you". My heart just broke. We started to talk about it and I told him "you know how Bubbe (his grandmother) loves to sit by the pool and puts oil all over herself? Well, that's because she wants to get brown." I explained that a lot of white people do silly things to make themselves brown like him. He asked me if I try to get brown and I laughed and told him I'd love to be brown like him but my skin just gets red and hurts so I have to wear sunscreen but his Daddy tries to get brown and does get darker than I ever will. He seemed to like the idea of white people trying to make themselves brown like him and that was the end of our discussion but it still hurts our hearts that he feels that way.

[onerainbowkid]

I hope you have found some answers since you posted this concern. I have a son your sons age, from Guatemala. He has been home 3 years. (From an orphanage). We did have a bit of up and down time with discussions of color. It is normal...(he also still has attachment disorder so we are in counseling).

Please get someone to talk to your son. Any child who even one time verbalizes they want to die, hate their color, etc, need someone outside mom and dad to help...


I once lived in Wisc, there used to adoptive groups to take our kids to. Also, Please contact one, and/or take your son to a Spanish speaking church so he can meet kids to play with who look like him?

We have done that...it has more than helped. They are just little guys, and sometimes, our mothers love, is just not enough.
Good luck and best wishes. Please keep us posted? Lisa