[CubanaYogini]

Even Babies Discriminate: A NurtureShock Excerpt. | Newsweek Life | Newsweek.com

A must-read for every parent. Especially us.

Truly eye-opening.

[marcav]

Thanks Cubana; that was a fascinating article and explains why to the puzzlement of many in my very diverse and progressive community why most of the students in the town's high school still self-segregate.

Mary

[Quesita]

Very interesting article! I posted a link to it about a week ago.

Take a peek at the thread.

article about children's perceptions of race

[Forever_family]

WOW! Thank you for this, in our transracial support group we have recently offended a few families because they think we should ignore race and essentially what they are saying is that we should all be "color blind" I think instead of defending our stance we will use this article/study.

My oldest son is 3, if a group of kids don't know him I almost always notice that groups of CC children dont' accept him right away (places like parks) but if the kids are AA and/or more diverse, its instant acceptance. So kids may not be "racist" but there is something going on, they are afraid or unsure of the difference, I am not sure what it is exactly but this article makes perfect sense to me. I've tried to explain this to moms of infants who have recently adopted, EVERY TIME they dismiss me. I find it very difficult to have my feelings on this disregarded or dimissed. For my family this is why it is so important for my children, all of them, to be around kids that are diverse. I will say that if the group of kids know him my son is accepted regardless of the diversity of the group.

[joskids]

"Forever" - the world isn't color blind. It would be dangerous to think that strategy will work.

[Forever_family]

Joskids, couldn't agree more- it is dangerous to think/pretend the world is colorblind. AND SO FRUSTRATING FOR ME when I'm talking to transracially adoptive parents who need to 'get it' yet dismiss this because then I am being "racist" or trying to let my children "use race as a crutch." GRRRRRRRRR

[CubanaYogini]

Sorry for the repost. My brain is not working too well right now.

[Quesita]

Originally Posted by CubanaYogini

Sorry for the repost. My brain is not working too well right now.

I think it is important enough to post twice!

[SHD]

Q, I didn't get a chance to read your link to the Newsweek article but saved it in my favorites to read later. Before I had a chance to read it NPR did a report on it last week. I found it very interesting. It also came in a rather timely moment for my family. My daughter went to Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI this summer. She didn't find it fascinating so we didn't discuss it at length. One evening at dinner she told her father and me when she went to the "back then museum" this summer they had a bus (THE bus, Rosa Parks) and on this bus black people had to sit in the back and white people sat in the front. She explained how she and Daddy would sit in back while I sat in front. Then she changed it and said she would sit in the middle. (she's becoming more aware of her racial makeup) It didn't occur to either of us to say that the rules "back then" were wrong. I kept asking her what if Daddy and I wanted to sit together and wanted her with us. In her mind (she's 6) these were the rules and we have to follow the rules. This study made me realize I need to be more proactive in how I discuss race with her. While she knows she is made up of many races/ethnicities I haven't discussed with her the sad parts of her past. When is old enough? Her father discussed it with his older kids when they were her age. He has some video from PBS that he shared with them so he's getting it out for her.

Thanks Q and Cubana for posting this.

[ChromaKelly]

I thought it was an interesting study. My only complaint with the article was that it didn't really give parents any tools to talk about race. I think that parents have good intentions with the "everyone is equal" type of thing, but that's obviously not enough. If we didn't have Caleb, I don't know really how we would be handling things. I grew up in a majority AA area, and I find my perception and experiences are a bit different than most CC peoples. I have had a few instances where a child says something like "Mommy why is that baby brown and the mommy white?" and the mother is thoroughly embarrassed and kind of shushes her kid, when she could use that as a moment to talk about race and color.

[GDSinPA]

I've seen this discussed on a few other forums and quite honestly, the article has a lot of weaknesses. Most of the anti-racist bloggers have really picked it apart as being superficial, and not particularly sound research. Not that the initial premise is wrong (that we should talk about race open and early), but some of the other conclusions.

This is the best response I've read - make sure you check out the comments as well.

A surprise to white people « Resist racism

[GDSinPA]

Here are some of my own thoughts..

The whole colorblind thing has always bothered me. Treating people as equals does not mean one has to be colorblind. I've always been of the mind that race matters, but should not matter. Until the rest of the world decides that race does not matter, then those of us who don't want it to matter cannot pretend to be color blind. See Jackie Robinson below...

I really like how the article essentially encourages people to go ahead and talk about race earlier than most people would otherwise. People seem to be so worried about confusing their children or bringing up a taboo subject that that they end up creating an atmosphere where children are able to openly ask questions and speak their minds.

The goal of Vittrup's study was to learn if typical children's videos with multicultural storylines have any beneficial effect on children's racial attitudes. Her first step was to give the children a Racial Attitude Measure...

I have a bit of a problem with this from a scientific POV. It's still not clear to me how she actually measured this and what was considered beneficial vs neutral vs detrimental. And that's the key that makes the whole project worth repeating on a larger scale. However, if you read the reaction on some other blogs - most of them are essentially reading the findings and going, "duh - we've been screaming that for years!"

Combing through the parents' study diaries, Vittrup realized why. Diary after diary revealed that the parents barely mentioned the checklist items. Many just couldn't talk about race, and they quickly reverted to the vague "Everybody's equal" phrasing.

I think this shows how important it is for white parents to have meaningful training before adopting a child of another ethnicity or race. It's not just about being tolerant and accepting - we need to understand more deeply concepts of white privilege and white normalcy and beauty that are perpetuated by society.

Just as minority children are aware that they belong to an ethnic group with less status and wealth, most white children naturally decipher that they belong to the race that has more power, wealth, and control in society; this provides security, if not confidence. So a pride message would not just be abhorrent—it'd be redundant.

Bingo. I thought about adding more comment, but don't really need to.

But even the little girl the most adamant that the Real Santa must be white came around to accept the possibility that a black Santa could fill in for White Santa if he was hurt. And she still gleefully yelled along with the Black Santa's final "Merry Christmas to All! Y'all Sleep Tight."

I really don't see this example as being a sign of progress. If you look at media even today, black people are often relegated to being the side kick or comic relief to a white man's lead.

I much more prefer their use of Jackie Robinson as someone who overcame overt racism and countless other obstacles to show. He was at the time, one of the top 5 players alive, and arguably the best. But you can't just talk generically about him being the first black major league player without discussing what he actually went through. I would argue that you cannot talk about baseball history honestly without also mentioning Satchel Page, Josh Gibson, and many others.

Blessings,
-Greg