Is she Racist?!
My schedule allows me to pick J up from school two days per week. On Monday she hopped in practically bursting with enthusiasm. “Mama, we’ve got a real mystery at school! My friends and I are working so hard to figure it out!” I’m always eager to hear about her burgeoning friendships, so I asked who she was working with. “It was Casey, Eva, Addie and that Black girl.” Yup, you read that right. Thank goodness the car was parked. [insert look of horror]
“Buddy, I’m not sure she wants to be called that, what if someone called you ‘that white girl’?”
“That’d be fine Mama. I can’t remember her name, but she has dark skin and black hair. Oh wait, it’s Maven!”
“Ok Buddy, let’s make sure to call her Maven then.”
Thank goodness J remembered her name. I had no idea where to begin that conversation.
I thought about it all evening, and even brought it up to M. We were confident that J was using black as a descriptor, but knew we needed to mitigate potential impact regardless of intention. We also felt strongly that we shouldn’t teach J to avoid noticing skin color and other differences among people. We’ve all seen the memes featuring frazzled white people using everything but race to describe someone. We are not color blind. So what then? Do we tell J that she did something wrong? Do we try to tackle the difference between naming features and claiming identities? Do we find kindergarten-appropriate content on the history of race in America?
The next evening I mustered all my little kid know-how and circled back.
“Hey J, remember when you told me about the kids who were playing the mystery game?”
“Yea, and I couldn’t remember Maven’s name.”
“Right. You called her ‘that Black girl’.”
“Because she has dark skin and black hair.”
“Yes, well, I’d like to talk about that for a minute. I know you weren’t trying to be mean, but there are people who use Black as an insult. Some of those people have even hurt others because of the color of their skin. And if Maven hears you describe her that way, her feelings might be really hurt.”
“Ok, but she wasn’t even around.”
“I know Buddy, but we don’t want to get used to talking that way and then accidentally hurt someone.”
“But I forgot her name!”
“Yup, and that’s going to happen. The thing is, people have all sorts of different features… different eyes, different hair, different skin, even different ways of walking and talking. Those differences are beautiful, and noticing them is normal. Like Daddy, he’s limping these days [sigh]. But if we described him as, ‘that guy with a limp’ he might feel like that’s all we see.”
M chimed in with, “that’s right - I also have a nice beard!”.
“Ok, so Daddy is that man with a limp and a beard.”
“Right, that’s more specific. Let’s practice. What if you forget Maven’s name again… how could you describe her?”
“She still has dark skin and black hair, and she also has sparkly nails!”
“Exactly, you’re being more specific!”
That’s as far as we got. At the end of the day, J probably is a little racist. We are all (at least) a little racist; we exist in racist systems. She already received five years of conditioning on beauty standards, princes and princesses, good guys and villains. As our therapist likes to remind us - the brain wants a story. If we don’t write one intentionally, we’ll fill in the blanks like a MadLibs game. So M and I try to intentionally infuse context and ask questions about the default stories…
“What if Addie doesn’t have a dad at home - what if she has two moms, or what if she has three moms?”
“What if Elsa doesn’t want to get married?”
“What if his legs don’t work the same way as yours?”
“What if all those dancers are my favorites?”
I know our conversations are far from perfect, but I’d rather model trying to address the hard stuff, than trying to ignore it.
