oops! The article didn't post. This is the article I was referring to: http://www.newsweek.com/id/214989

Sorry to post a bajillion times on this thread, but I just glanced over at the article again and wanted to add that if you do read the article, I would strongly recommend *against* reading the comments that people have posted responding to it.

I talk to my kids very openly about race, as it comes naturally, and also from a historical perspective. I think it's really important that kids grow up learning their true history, even though it's painful to understand. The thing that really opened it up for my daughter was, somebody gave her the book, Tom Sawyer when she was eight years old. This was the original, unfiltered version, and it had a lot of serious stereotypes and blatant racism about black people in the south (as most of you probably know).

So we came across a word in the first chapter of the book, and I said do you know what this means? Of course she didn't, so I explained to her the hatred and ignorance charging the word. I told her we were going to spend a few weeks studying some American History. I started with the Civil War, and moved backwards through slavery. She learned about the slave ships, the auctions, everything. Together, we read accounts of child slaves, stories about heroes that helped slaves become free, and the TRUE reasons behind the civil war. I learned a lot that I didn't know while studying with her, and I took history in college. After going backward from the civil war, we went forward, and learned about how things have changed since then, and how things haven't changed.

Wow, that article was fascinating, thanks for posting. I really encourage everyone to read it. Definitely some food for thought.

And it's true what it says in the article as well: we talk about gender with DD, but not race. I figured she was too young to understand so I was waiting for her to bring it up rather than create an issue where there was none. (Whereas she had shown us that she was picking up on gender roles so I thought I'd talk to her about it.) I had specifically chosen books/media and chosen a daycare for the sake of this "diverse environment theory." TBH I hadn't thought about it all that much, I just assumed this was the right way to go about it. Definitely no longer happy with that approach.

Will be interested in reading the other responses.

I talk occasionally with my two and a half year old about race. I want her to know it's okay to talk about race with me, so I took the initiative to point out race sometimes. For example, her grandmother gave her some Little People a bit ago. We talk about the characteristics of the people, and I make a point to include race in the discussion of the attributes of the different people. We read books that explicitly talk about race.

At the same time, she's very young. It's difficult to determine what she's taking away from this. At the very least, I hope it opens up the groundwork for talking about it in the future when she has more language to talk about these issues.

That's always something that I've thought about. How am I going to talk to my child about race when he/she is born and growing?
I want them to be as culturally open as possible. I want them to be able to learn and immerse themselves in the wonderful different aspects of different cultural beliefs and traditions. I would like them to know that these different races and also the discrimination and ignorance that some people have faced on them over generations.
I hope that they can learn the word "ignorance" at a young age, the real definition. Because it will help them understand why so many people act the way they do. Simply, because they don't know.
This article was a wonderful read. I'm hoping to have some good insight by the time my baby is born and old enough to at least somewhat understand the different types of people in this world-- good or bad.

Being that I have a bi racial child whom is growing up in an all white household, race is a big thing that we discuss with our kids. We teach our kids acceptance of all people we are very open with them and we do not sugercoat the realities of life. we explain to them that at times in there lives ignorance will be presented to them and to remember that people are people no matter what color they are.

The part that is hard that J wonders why he doesn't look like anyone else he doesn't have a person that he looks at the same as him.

I don't love everything about the article, but I think it makes several good points:
1. There is no way to raise kids to be colorblind b/c colorblindness, in today's society, does not exist.
2. White parents often don't know how to breach the topic of race with their kids, esp. very young kids, or don't deem it worthwhile (and usually invoke the colorblindness myth when explaining why).
3. Talking about race openly with kids from an early age is essential in combating prejudice.

My answers to my own questions:
I do talk about race openly with my son, who is four, but probably not enough. He knows he's white (as am I) and we've talked about how people come from different races and that's okay, and a little bit about discrimination and why that's not okay. We haven't really talked historically about racism/discrimination/etc. at all, but I plan to start more conversations about it in the future.

I like the idea of bringing up the topic when reading a book. There are definitely children's books that I think deal with the issue of racism really well (though I can't come up with the names for the two, in particular, that I'm thinking of right now) and could be used to start conversations.

Momnipotent - My son's school and social group is also very diverse, as is the area where we live. Like you, I think I've somehow expected that, in and of itself, to combat racism, as though somehow my son's bff being a different race than he is will stop him from developing prejudices. Really, I as a parent, have to do my job as a parent and, you know actually *teach* my kid what's right and wrong. I think that having diverse representations in media and books is incredibly important, and it's great to live in a heterogeneous area, but those, on their own, are definitely not enough.

Even if there was a way to be colorblind, it's a racist approach in itself. To be colorblind and to act as if all races are equal is to ignore the fact that in society, all races are not equal. To avoid seeing color is to keep whiteness centred. It's a head in the sand approach so that people can pat themselves on the back for not being one of 'those' people, while not doing anything to actually help.

I talk about my sons about race whenever I see an opportunity to do so. I sometimes wish I had the privilege to choose an age to broach the subject, but since my kids are POC and they've seen/experienced racism, it needs to be addressed as young as possible. My son was near 3 when he first told me I was yucky because I was brown, something he learned from daycare, I don't have the luxury of being able to wait or choose how he's exposed to it.

We have a lot of books on it, and I'm pretty vocal about racial politics in front of the kiddos.

I do talk about race with the kids, but not enough and it's mostly situational. We've talked about racism against people from the Middle East in the wake of 911 and racism in the context of hurricane Katrina (both conversations were brought on by L asking questions). We had a lot of discussions about racism and whitewashing of history when S brought home a few books from the school library about Columbus that used the word "Indians", but I think most of that really went over his head.

My kids go to a school in which the mojority of the students are not PWOC. A huge issue has been that if you are a PWOC, other PWOC feel that you're automatically a safe person to spout their disapproval of POC. My kids do hear my trying to educate other people who make racist remarks, but they also hear a lot of that racism from the people that they are around. But yea, assuming that diversity in their school/neighbourhood/whatever is enough to combat racism is pretty dangerous.

We also talk a lot about our particular family structure. Lex will point out that Mommy, S and her are white while Daddy and K are brown. When she first started mentioning it, it was in a way that implied K being brown was a bad thing, so we have talked that through quite a bit and she no longer does that.