Talking to Kids about Race

"Hey, Nicole!" My neighbor shouts from his driveway as I get my mail. "Hey!" I wave back with my fist full of bills and junk mail. "Those sure are some WHITE legs!" He laughs all the way back to his door. And, this my friends is how I know for a certainty that it is in fact springtime. It's our tradition, not unlike the groundhog emerging from his burrow. I wear shorts for the first time in months. My neighbor yells how white I am, occasionally shielding his eyes from the blinding glare of it. Welcome springtime. This was added onto "Hey, is that a beer belly!?" I got from across the way for two entire pregnancies.

So there it is. We've all got a color. Some more glaring than others, apparently. But, here's the thing. We think young kids don't notice. Or, we think that in their innocence kids aren't capable of prejudice. So, research shows that we, White Nurturers, aren't talking about it. We're avoiding it or whispering skin color in conversation so we don't bias our little blank slates in pig tails so they will continue to remain pure in thought. Y'all, we are SO wrong.

Nurture, say hello to Nature. We are all cognitively predisposed to take in info and put it into categories--quickly. We focus on the big things that help our little brains classify it quickly--ooh, color. That'll work. It's a mental short cut really. Instead of processing all of the traits of the individual we like to jump to focus on the one thing that's a category heading-- Black, White and then in that category we have a lot of characteristics that we can pull from-- like smart or good dancers or dishonest. So, we stereotype--shove people into our brain's category and then assume based on characteristics we have for that category--our prejudice. But, surely sweet little punkin over there snuggling that little bear with those big doe eyes doesn't have prejudice. Ummm, yeah. 3 year olds are already fitting things into male and female categories based on mom and dad. They might think men work, women do laundry, for example. Grace, age 3, told me once "Daddies don't clean bathrooms, right?" Serious stank eye to the Mister. Came home to a sparkling toilet bowl.

I helped a grandpa pick out a doll for his granddaughter at Target last week. While trying to keep an eye on my fugitive 1 year old I grabbed the black doll of the brand I recommended. "Not THAT one!" he said. "Well, get what you want," I said. "We play with dolls of different colors."There was a sweet time when I told Grace, around age 2 that she could select a doll. She chose a black one. Into the basket it went and was purchased without me blinking an eye. I was going to thoroughly enjoy the innocent time when Grace wanted a baby that didn't look like her. She didn't care even if she did notice. She still plays with it and I've seen how it disturbed one mama who said "oh, a multicultural doll". Yeah, that doll even speaks a couple of languages. Say, what mama-multicultural? When Grace was 4 I told her I'd like to get her a treat. There were two small dollies. I picked a black and white one. "Mommy, why are you getting this one?" The black one. "People are all colors. I'd like some dollies of all colors," Oh. Into the cart. 2 years. Innocence lost.

Here's the other thing. Nature, how ya doing? We're also predisposed to think of people who don't look like us as more negative. We like, no we LOVE to have a group. And to have an in-crowd, we've got to have outsiders. We're group oriented. Our ancestors depended on it for their survival and we're stuffed full of their genes. We're drawn to people who look like us--easy to define our in-group. I knew instantly in looking at Ben's new classroom of 2 year olds who he'd be drawn to. Yep, I was right. Best friends with the blonde haired blue eyed girl who looks just like Grace, his playmate at home. And, Grace trusts ALL people with the name Jack-- the name of her baby brother and her first best boy friend in preschool.

In an experiment in which kids were randomly assigned to wear certain colored shirts, and the experimenters never mentioned anything about shirt color, kids naturally started to flock to people wearing the same color. Red kids played with red kids, blue with blue. What's more they rated people of different shirt colors as more negative traits-- more likely to lie, more likely to be unkind. Yep. And this phenomenon has been shown with young kiddos with race. Parents rate their kids as not having biases but when we ask said punkins about their thoughts on people of different skin color they rate them more negatively. And, research also shows it's not enough to just expose them to diversity to eliminate this prejudice.

It's inspiring and hopeful that the world embraces diversity much more than in the days of our parents. Actually, even when I was a wee tot I remember parents whispering in disapproval at the pick up line about the only black student that joined my private school. Scandal. My mother swept me away quickly. And, when I worked at a medical college as a research assistant part of my job was to help lit reviews on why there was a disparity of care-- doctors were deriving diagnoses based on how it fit their schema or category for a race. For example, white doctors were more likely to assume certain symptoms were from drug use if the patient was black, as one example. We've still got it. We've come a long way, but we've still got it and we still have some work to do improving it.

Ok, Nurturers mount up. We can turn this around. Here's what researchers have found does turn around how kids change how they think about race:

1. Stop pussy footing around the pink elephant in the room. Call that sucker pink and the the elephant next to it purple. Punkin, we're all different colors.

2. Ask that kiddo what he thinks about different colors of skin. You might be surprised at their theories. Here's a good opportunity to chat about why people are different colors. We all look similar to our parents, and they to their parents, etc. Grace got a card in the mail before Ben was born. The card had black and white babies on it. Ooh!! She said, I can't wait to see what color our baby will be! Tommy looked panicked. But, only for a brief second:)

3. Here's the tough part for a lot of white moms. In a study where white parents were asked to do the following, many withdrew from the study refusing to do it because they didn't want to point out differences (hello, your little baby already notices them): Talk to the kiddo about how a lot of people make assumptions just based on color and our family values friendship with an individual and we're not concerned with what color you are. Turns out when moms id have the Talk, it improved their kids prejudices.

4. And, here's my personal 2 cents. In our family, someone says or does something you know is wrong we expect them to take an action-- sometimes using your voice to tell someone to stop. Or, simply going and standing in front of a child being bullied if you can't find your voice. If it gets bad, find a teacher. But, we teach that watching and doing nothing is wrong. And waiting for another to step up means you might be waiting all day cuz baby, they're waiting on you. Act. and Act Right Away.
Grace is a quiet, shy little thing but she's got a fire for an underdog. My favorite story of Gracie sticking up for a little one was at the playground at the mall. A little boy pushed a 9 month old. Grace marched her tail over to him and said "We do not hit babies. I don't want to see that again" The mom came over and thanked Gracie afterwards. The world has a minority of bullies and victims and a sea of onlookers if only they'd realize they're an army.

Finally, we've got to take a good look at ourselves. What biases do we have? When we tell a story are we saying "Oh, and then my black friend said..." Umm, trying to show off that we actually have a black friend? Ok, well congrats to you. Or, are we so focused on it that we need to point out their color so that someone hearing the story can get a better idea of what that person was like based on what we think is important in defining them. Wow, that's not flattering for us. When we go into a room of people we don't know do we approach people who don't look like us? Are we putting limits on love for all? Are we saying, be friends with people of different colors but don't date them.

But, we've got to start the talk around age 4-6. Now. By third grade the Talk is less effective in changing how kids think about race. Check out Nurture Cracked. Awesome book. I've had the talk. Have you? Come on, surely you have some thoughts on this. Comment box below.