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Before this thread gets closed...it's unfortunate if anyone is taking this too personally or getting a little too emotional over it. I realize it's a sensitive topic. But I have found it very interesting to read other points of view on this, and be able to share mine. This is something I think few people who are not minority have understood, and I think Parallel JJ Cat explained it perfectly.
No child is racist, and I don't think that messages from outside influences can make a child "racist." I think the child can get notions from these messages that affect how they perceive others. Even black children get messages about other black people based on skin tone. It's not like these messages only affect white children. All kids hear them, and while they may not consciously decide to believe them, it just happens. If no one counteracts those messages, what choice would they have to accept them?
I think it's just something to be aware of. I'm quite sure that no one here is deliberately raising their child to be biased. I'm not raising mine to be biased against anyone either. But I am aware that she may hear or see things that may cause it, and it's up to me to correct that.
Believe it or not, I've found the most hurtful, harmful comments to my dd have come from not white people, but other black people, and it is because they have grown up with and accepted these subtle messages about what is beautiful and what is not. My dd is often mistaken for biracial because she has long curly hair and light skin, and when black people compliment her, it is often in the tone of "She's so pretty, so she must be mixed." As if it's not possible for a pretty girl to have two black parents. Also a huge insult to me, as if I'm too black or too ugly to have a pretty child. I make sure I correct people firmly, and make sure she can hear me, so she knows that what they are saying is wrong.
Again, this is all just something that most white parents don't have to face or deal with, because their child's skin is not an issue. But I think just because it's something that your child doesn't have to personally deal with doesn't mean it isn't something to be aware of.
I don't understand why people think white people never have to deal with racism. I've had comments said to me and opinions (not always positive) formed about me because I'm white. It does happen.
I know a LOT of kids like Finster's. Kids who are brought up in a rainbow of colors and it just goes right over their heads until someone points it out.
My own mother had to point out to me that my very ethnic adopted sister was especially dark skinned for her race. I can tell you I'd never noticed. No one had ever said anything to me about it. And I was in my 20's. We were clothes shopping and it came up when we were talking about what looked good on her. And I said, "Well, I guess she is." And that was that. I'd seen thousands of people her race and never even thought about them coming in "shades".
It happens. If you don't care... you don't notice.
I do agree with this. I previously said that we knew people looked different, but I honestly don't remember any of that until we were older. When we were in the lower part of elementary school we did not think, Asian, white, Hispanic, other. We thought, "Oooh, a friend." I didn't even know a lot of racial stereotypes until I moved out of the area when I was a junior in high school.
Even if the typical child somehow has gained a signficant level of knowledge about genotypes and phenotypes, most kids on their own really don't care. I just believe that the kids in the OP's story had most likely picked up their racist attitudes from adults.
If nothing is said about race, kids will actually do just fine with it, I don't think kids become racist all on their own most of the time. Now they might have learned by people pointing out that they look just like their mother, or just like their father, or just like Aunt Susie, that how you look might be due to family members. I do remember as a kid being annoyed that people would say I looked just like my Dad -- I thought it meant I looked like an old guy (he was 22 years older than me) and also because before I knew about how babies were made, I didn't see how it would make any sense for me to look like him.
I don't believe this is entirely true. Kids are naturally curious and they are observant. Both of my children noticed people with dark skin look different from us and commented on it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that either. It certainly isn't mean or racist.
I don't believe in race so why would I teach it. I believe there are differences but race is really just a big spectrum. I certainly don't believe race is about skin color because the variation within a so-called race is very wide and there is so much overlap between so-called races that you really cannot say where one race ends and another begins.
Sure kids will notice someone's skin is paler or darker, they'll notice someone is blond, someone is brunette, and some people have straight hair and others have curly hair. Kids by themselves don't come up with the concept of 3 or 4 separate distinct races.
If anything I've had to unteach concepts of race. My oldest kid really didn't think about race one way or the other when he was in a mixed race preschool. By the time he was in 3rd grade he began to become aware of race but through school. For Martin Luther King day, there was a discussion at school on race, and so he came home telling me how sorry he felt for black people.
I asked him why and he said because they are so poor and life is bad for them. So I told him that I could take him to work and show him some black people he didn't have to feel sorry for, how their parents make more than his parents do and they'd probably tell him they didn't think their lives were all that bad.
So yes, I believe race is really kind of artificial categories and there really are not separate races, many attitudes about it are taught by adults.
How can you not believe in race?!
It exists! There are different races, cultures, religions, political beliefs, sexual orientations, etc. Pretending differences don't exist leads to major, major issues!
They already know they're all alike. You don't notice differences when everyone is different. That makes nobody different. To have done all that above would have been to point out differences that they would now think they might have to care about in some way or another.
I agree it's not racist to notice differences or to be curious. But AFAIK, it never even came up that any of them were "different". Nobody noticed my child was different, or mentioned it, that I know of. Having the various kids there was par for the course. I live in a very integrated community and nobody walks around pointing out different races or ethnicities. That's all you'd do all bleedin' day, if that were the case.
I'm sorry but I can't wrap my head around this. If everyone is different and we acknowledge that then how can you not notice the differences? Frankly, I don't want to live in a world where differences are "not noticed".
What some of us are trying to say is that the race (or color) doesn't MATTER to kids who are brought up in a mixed community with friends of all colors.
They see it. But it doesn't register because they don't care. It has no meaning to them.
The "dark skin is bad" comes in when a child has learned that or been told that. Or he's been told straight hair is bad. Or whatever it is someone else has told him. My extended family is as mixed as your's. We have a rather famous story of one nephew announcing, "Uncle X is different from everyone else." We all held our breaths because Uncle X is a different color from this nephew. Until he announced "Uncle X has a really big head". He was about four. (And he's very artistic. Noticing things like that have paid off for him as an adult.)
I think this is the wrong way to approach race relations. Not caring and not assigning meaning to different cultures is dangerous, IMO.
It depends on how you define pretending. What I mean is that your brain builds connections regardless...you don't get to control that. I don't think people are outright lying or pretending when they say they don't notice or care about race. I do think most of them would be very surprised by the results if they took an implicit associations test.
Race matters. It doesn't matter if YOU think it matters because the WORLD thinks it does, and the world outweighs your opinion. When your child watches tv or flips through a magazine, everything they see is a reflection of a world where race matters.
So when I say 'pretending' in this case, I'm referring to the privilege required to say that race doesn't matter. Raising your children 'color blind' is a reflection of privilege. If you wait until to discuss race until your child encounters racism, you're just ignoring all of those associations that are being built up because no child lives in a vacuum.
And yes, I am directly saying that you DO notice race. I don't think you are pretending not to...I believe that you genuinely think that you don't and maybe that's true. But your brain does.
Personally, I don't believe in gender. It's an artificial construct dependent on culture. I don't believe in a binary gender of woman/man.
But the world I live in does, and I carry associations about gender because of it, despite considering myself agendered. I can't escape that...but I can be aware of it. That's the only defense, and that's what will change things...not ignoring the issue.
Or, perhaps it's an acknowledgement by the people that make kids tv that actually, other races besides white matter, not just that race matters. And again, race matters to ADULTS, not kids.
Again, I cannot understand this statement.
Yes, race does matter to kids and it should! It is part of who we are, where we come from - culturally, historically, etc. Our race is tied to our culture which is tied to our beliefs and worldview which is tied to our history.
I am just beyond exasperated with giving a perfectly valid example of a little girl's lack of prejudice, and having it disputed. Of course we're aware of it, and just because she doesn't have to deal with it personally (although she might, she's the minority in our hood) she will, on behalf of her friends, no doubt. I just don't see the need to disrupt the innocent phase of childhood until we need to.
But a lack of prejudice does not equal non-observation of differences.
But a lack of prejudice does not equal non-observation of differences.
Margritte, she accepts her friends and schoolmates for who they are.
When I say she doesn't "care" or doesn't "notice" or it doesn't "matter" - I mean she doesn't judge anybody based on their color, have any preconceived ideas about them based on their color, or have any bias toward them based on their color, or treat them in anyway different to each other based on their color.
To her they are friends and aren't different.
Obviously, when she gets older and learns history and culture, she'll have a deeper understanding of where people are from and what their struggles and backgrounds are.
For now, they're just her friends.
I honestly don't understand why people have such an issue with that.
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