Reply to "Racists are recruiting. Watch your white sons."

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Reply to ""Racists are recruiting. Watch your white sons.""

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What I've done with my white boy (a teen now) is talk quite a bit about race and history, while also giving him a sense of how he can be on the side of right. We have a long family history of participation in abolition and civil rights, and so we can tell him that he has a place in the struggle as an ally. Its convenient to be able to share family history, but I think its important for kids to identify with something. We don't want them to feel excluded from the struggle by their whiteness when talking about oppression - we want them to feel a sense of solidarity with those who fight it. So yes, it is important to give white kids models of white anti-racists they can identify with and look up to and feel that the struggle against racism is a critical part of the American story, and as Americans it becomes their story, too.[/quote]

Thanks. This is helpful. If you have any oppression in your family history, do you ever talk about that and make the connection to current events?  (Like war refugees, immigrants etc).  [/quote]

A bit. My husband's family were immigrants in 1900 after bouncing around Europe being driven from one country to another, and he grew up very poor. But it feels very remote to my son, and when he's read European immigrant stories that reflect his dad's side of the family he hasn't been interested. He has been very interested in reading books like The Hate U Give which reflect modern struggles, though. And so because that is inherently interesting to him we try to show him what his role might be rather than trying to make him feel like his family was oppressed, too. Way back, sure. But recently, no.[/quote]

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