ARE YOU TALKING TO YOUR WHITE KIDS ABOUT RACISM?

IF YOU AREN’T TALKING TO YOUR KIDS ABOUT RACISM NOW, THEN WHEN?

These are my babies. My eldest, Adventure is almost 15 my youngest, Mayhem is 6. Epic, our middle kid is racing towards 12, his little teen moustache starting to form.

But this is deeper than that.

I am overwhelmed with love and pride as I watch him grow into a man. With his muscles, and his deep voice and his testosterone changing him right in front of my eyes.

If my son were black, I can imagine, I might have conflicted feelings of pride, and fear.

If he were a black kid, I would have to have had hundreds, probably thousands of conversations large and small about how to be safe... how to keep himself alive, in a world that says he’s dangerous.

Even with those dimples.

Dangerous even though he still sleeps with his stuffy tucked under his head like a toddler.

But my son is not black. And so I haven’t had to have these endless conversations. Just because I don’t have to doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be.

Because my son is not black I don’t worry that the police will take him from me, for whatever made up BS they use to disguise their actions as anything other than racism.

But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be having hundreds of the same conversations about race, with a little twist. Conversations starting long before they will even remember them. Conversations that are just a part of our everyday life.

Because maybe if we all had more of these conversations earlier, more informed, having done our own work, black parents wouldn’t have to fear letting their babies out into a world that isn’t safe, and frankly doesn’t deserve them.

I have privilege, as a parent of white kids that parents of black kids do not have.

I don’t have to worry about keeping him safe from the police.

White folks, try with me for a second to imagine how much energy that must take up every second of every day.

We don’t have to expend that energy. We get to worry about camping and if we are or are not allowed to hang dream catchers anymore? Totally good things to worry about btw. But notice the difference in intensity.

But what if,

Instead of worrying about whether the police might kill my son, I put all that extra energy into worrying about if the police might kill anyone’s child.

The easiest way I know to do that is to teach my fives kids to go out into the work and use their whiteness to keep others safe. To wield the privilege that it carries with care, and intention.

To understand that their black friends won’t get the benefit of the doubt that they will when they do some “dumb teenage prank”.

To know how to speak up, and take action when something isn’t right.

And to keep listening to BIPOC voices, to keep learning, and to keep doing better.

But What If I Mess Up when talking about racism?

I’m definitely going to mess up.

More than once.

But I would rather mess up trying, then sit by, complicit in my silence.

I would rather apologize for my error rather than my silence.

White folks, we need to be teaching our kids these lessons, and we need to be doing it now.

It’s never too early to have conversations about privilege and racism with our kids.

You better believe black families are having them with their sweet little loves from the beginning, because black folks are tired of burying their kids.

The least we can do is have some real conversations with our white kids. Conversations that have us look at our own part in upholding these racist systems that benefits us, like it or not, at the cost of others.

We need to have conversations that teach empathy, responsibility and perspective.

Even if we don’t do it perfectly. Because we won't.
Even if we are clumsy and screw up. Because we will.
Even if we don’t quite know how.

We just have to start.

Who’s in?

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

Google is your friend. This is not an invite to ask your black friends how to talk to your white kids about racism. That’s our job! There are many amazing resources.

Check out these resources:

NPR - How White Parents Can Talk To Their Kids About Race

Layla F Saad - Parenting and White Supremacy

Monique Melton - Unity Over Comfort