"They are not too young to talk about race"

As a biracial business owner, the ”race” talks are close to home and believe no kid is too young to have this conversation with.

There is a lot going on right now with the black lives matter movement and I believe in the power of educating our children to have a better future.

To better understand and how to start this conversation with your family , here are a few resources:

• An article with with Dr. Erin Winkler ( associate professor of Africology and Urban Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) on how to raise race-conscious children

• Children’s book lists

• and more

Zachary Gibson / BuzzFeed

" Adults often think they should avoid talking with young children about race or racism because doing so would cause them to notice race or make them racist. In fact, when adults are silent about race or use "colorblind" rhetoric, they actually reinforce racial prejudice in children. Starting at a very young age, children see patterns - who seems to live where, what kind of home they see as they ride or walk through different neighborhoods; who is the most desirable character  in the movies they watch: who seems to have particular jobs  or roles at the doctors office, at school, at the grocery store ; and so on - and try to assign "rules" to explain what they see. Adults' silence about these patterns and the structural racism that causes them, combine with the false but ubiquitous "American dream" narrative that everyone can achieve anything that they want through hard work, results in children concluding  that the patterns they see "must have been caused by meaningful inherent difference between groups" . In other words, young children infer the racial inequities they see are natural and justified. so despite good intentions , when we fail to talk openly  with our children about about racial inequity in our society, we are in fact contributing  to the development of their racial  biases , which studies show are already in place" Dr. Erin Winkler, 2017.

Photo from http://www.childrenscommunityschool.org/social-justice-resources/

If you are interested in anti racism books for children here are a few lists:

From New York Magazine :

https://nymag.com/strategist/article/anti-racist-childrens-books.html

From Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Childrens-Prejudice-Racism/zgbs/books/3135

It’s our responsibility as parents, caregivers and teachers to have meaningful conversations with our children. Hope you find this information valuable and comment below for more resources. We are in this together.