Reply to How to talk race and diversity with a preschooler?

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Reply to "How to talk race and diversity with a preschooler?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Just to be clear, I'm not 11:36 but I am the person the angry hashtag user was attacking. A number of us here disagree and we have different ways of expressing it. [/quote]
I'm not quite clear who you are saying you are, but I am 11:11.  I want to make it clear that I am not angry, I am frustrated, very frustrated. I am allowed to be that. Using the label of "angry" is an easy default used way often when the express deeply felt emotions, including frustration, disappointment and sometimes sadness. 
Honestly, all I was trying to express is that there is nothing wrong with telling a small child, in no uncertain terms, that we do not judge a person's value based on external characteristics. And yes, hitting someone and causing physical harm is a good analogy. Kids understand "hurt", physically and emotionally. There are times when you have to tell a child to "stop" doing something and provide the deeper and broader explanation. Conversations about race, and the development of morals/values around race is a lifelong endeavour. It just amazes me that people would think it is damaging to tell a child to not place personal value based on racial characteristics and that if they do it is a natural stage that we must tread just so verrrryyy lightly because we could hurt their feelings by re-directing that line of thinking. I am black, my child is black and from early on we taught DC that EVERYONE  is different from one another and that we celebrate EVERYONE'S uniqueness and that we endeavour not to identify people by race or to assess their value based on race. And yes, I have no  problem saying that I find it arrogant and often a manifestation of white privilege for someone who is not a person of color, to tell a person of color how to discuss race/racism/politics of color in this society. And the poster saying that their kindergartner has black friends. SMDH, having friends of color does not preclude anyone from being racist.  People can be racist and have filipino/cambodian/black/dominican/mexican friends. It so happens that they see that individual as "different' from the rest. No, your DC is not racist, but for you to even not understand that having friends of color eliminates racism shows how very uneducated you are on the topic.[/quote]

No one said having a black friend means you aren't racist. I was encouraging the OP to use her child's black friend as an example in how to think about race and equality, as a way of making the child see that skin color doesn't determine who the person is. The fact that you totally misread that I think shows that you are assuming we are all speaking from a bad place. I also never suggested that the reason to not just shut down the kid's comments was out of worry for his feelings. The concern here is not just teaching a child to not say hurtful things, we all want the child not to THINK those things either. My arguments have been about getting to that goal successfully. [/quote]

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