June 30, 2020

Racism, White Privilege, and How We Can Talk to Our Kids | POF51

Racism, White Privilege, and How We Can Talk to Our Kids | POF51

Are our children born with bias or is this something we teach them?   We can look at the way a baby's brain develops to clue us in.  At 3 months, we can see that babies prefer to look at faces of their own race, by 9 months they are...

Are our children born with bias or is this something we teach them?   We can look at the way a baby's brain develops to clue us in.  At 3 months, we can see that babies prefer to look at faces of their own race, by 9 months they are able to recognize faces from their own race better than from another race and this is when the brain starts to organize people into "groups" as a way of organizing them and processing information. 

That leads us to the concept of in-groups (people like me) who I think are 'better' and out-groups (people not like me) that are not as 'good'. 

What's the point? It's never too early to talk about racism or different races.  If you are like me, a well-meaning white woman, who wants to bring her kids up without prejudice, you might not have spoken about it because you thought by not talking about the different colour of other people's skin, will somehow mean that your kids won’t see colour and will therefore love and accept everyone the same….

BUT, what my guest, Jen Lumanlan, taught me is that choosing not to talk about it, is a privilege I have because I'm white.  What I now know is that people of every other race and minority HAS NO CHOICE but to have this conversation with their children because they are the victims of prejudice, racism, and intolerance on a daily basis and they have to prepare their children for the inevitable discrimination they’ll face sooner or later.

This conversation was a huge eye opening moment for me.  I was someone who didn't even want to say "white" or "black".  In this episode, my intention is to have a vulnerable conversation about my own (and commonplace) ignorance about racism and learn what we can all do better to be more tolerant, educated to end systemic racism. 

About Jen Lumanlan

Jen Lumanlan holds an M.S. in Psychology (Child Development) and an M.Ed., and hosts the Your Parenting Mojo podcast which is a reference guide for parents of toddlers and preschoolers based on scientific researchers and the principles of respectful parenting.  In each issue she examines a topic related to parenting and child development from all sides to help parents understand how to make decisions about raising their children.  She lives in California with her husband and daughter.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YourParentingMojo/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/yourparentingmojo/

website yourparentingmojo.com

Podcast: yourparentingmojo.com

From the Episode:

57 privileges of white parents blog post, along with lots of other facts about maternal health outcomes etc.: https://yourparentingmojo.com/57-privileges-of-white-parents/

Tre Johnson's article about white people joining book clubs https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/white-antiracist-allyship-book-clubs/2020/06/11/9edcc766-abf5-11ea-94d2-d7bc43b26bf9_story.html?fbclid=IwAR1j_POu-A2eZ1xrB1yEi68bcrnZ2L44i8zdaLWcaVDfGCjN7TDp7ByRXrg

Teaching Tool:  graphic that summarizes children's awareness of issues related to race at different ages: https://www.sfbayplaytherapy.com/teaching-kids-about-racism.html

Jen Lumanlan’s  FREE downloadable resources related to race are collected here: https://yourparentingmojo.com/race/ 

 On this page you will find, The First 10 Steps to Raise an Anti-Racist Child, and How To Talk With Your Child About Slavery and the Civil Rights Movement, as well as the list of social media accounts of people of non-dominant cultures to follow.

Episodes/blog posts that you might find specifically helpful include:

 

White parents: How to talk with your preschooler about Black Lives Matter: https://yourparentingmojo.com/white-parents-how-to-talk-with-your-preschooler-about-black-lives-matter/

White privilege in parenting: What it is, and what to do about it: https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/whiteprivilege/

White privilege in schools: https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/schoolprivilege/

 

Jane Elliott's experiment as referenced in the episode(with Chinese subtitles!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGvoXeXCoUY

 

Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum's book Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? : https://www.amazon.com/Black-Kids-Sitting-Together-Cafeteria/dp/0465083617 and my interview with her: https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/talkingaboutrace/

 

Thanks for listening!

It means so much to me that you listened to my podcast! If you would like to purchase my book or other parenting resources, visit me at www.yellingcurebook.com

 

With this podcast, my intention is to build a community of parents that can have open and honest conversations about parenting without judgement or criticism.  We have too much of that!  I honor each parent and their path towards becoming the best parent they can be.  My hope is to inspire more parents to consider the practice of Peaceful Parenting. If you know

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