Parenting While ‘White’ – by Jennifer Harvey
A few weeks ago my young Black nephew, T. was playing with some other kids, most of whom were white. At some point one of the white girls pointed at him and said, “Your skin’s the same color as poop!”
Later, my nephew told his mom about it. “Was that girl being racist?” he asked. “Yes,” she said, “She was trying to make you feel bad about the color of your skin. That’s racism.”
“I thought so,” T. said. “And after she said that, G. [another white child on the scene] started yelling, saying to her, ‘Hey, that’s racist! Hey that’s racist!”
My sister was glad G. had intervened. My nephew also clearly saw G.—who is only about eight-years-old—as having stood up for him and T. felt good about that. And, I’m writing about this because this is the kind of talk kids have all the time.
I’m also writing because, as a mother of two white children, I wonder if my kids are equipped to respond the way G. did, challenging the racist remark of another child. Far too few of us who are justice-committed parents of white kids (parents like me) have made a spiritually rooted, morally committed decision to rise to the challenges of “Parenting While White” (PWW). It’s past time we do so.
Let me back up.
In recent years, more white U.S.-Americans have learned that parents of Black and Latino/a children have to have “the talk” early with their kids about things like protecting themselves against police. More of us have become aware of phenomena like “Driving While Black” (DWB). DWB means you weren’t really pulled over because of your broken taillight. Your actual violation? You were driving while Black.
In a racist nation where people of color have to teach their children to protect themselves against white authorities, what does that mean for parents of white children? How do we teach our “privileged” children to be sensitive to discrimination that doesn’t affect them personally? How do we teach them to not participate in racist behavior when part of childhood is testing good and bad behaviors all the time?
Let me back up one more time.
For those of us who believe racial justice to be a vision close to the heart of God, the racial climate in our nation is beyond distressing. This was true before November 2016. But, the racial vitriol that animated the presidential election, where the instigator emerged as the victor, created an uptick in how palpable this distress is and the sense of urgency it creates.
Our current political moment exposes a devastating lack of collective and robust anti-racist capacity, vision and commitment among whites of voting age. It doesn’t matter that many white people voted against a person who said (and continues to say) hateful and vile things about Black people, Latino/a people, immigrants and women. What matters is that a majority (more than 50%) of white Christians did cast such votes. What does that say about the state of white Christianity? Those of us who believe ourselves to be justice-committed white Christians should be taking some somber inventory about now.
If we want a different future than what we’re living in now, one of the many things such inventory reveals is that we must raise white children in a radically different way than most of us—even the justice-committed white people among us—were raised. This means getting honest and serious about the quandaries of PWW.
We must go beyond teaching our children to believe in equality and value difference. We must also engage with them and model for them anti-racist choices and interventions in ways they can understand and emulate. And all of this has to be done in a national climate that seethes with racial vitriol that our kids are exposed and immersed in every day.
- I’m talking about parenting white children in ways such that, over time, they are both comfortable in their own skin but also able to function well in racially diverse environments.
- I’m talking about nurturing them such that they neither ignore nor pretend not to notice the racial identities of others but also do not make assumptions about individual people based on their race.
- I’m talking about raising children who feel equipped and have strong moral commitments to interrupt and challenge racism when they witness it, both in interpersonal and day-to-day life moments as well as larger structural and societal forms of racism.
The dilemmas of PWW are real. PWW is different from parenting children of color. Being committed to equity and justice while living in a racist and segregated society that privileges your racial group over others, creates unique conundrums for white people. Our children are not immune from such conundrums, which begin early in life and impact the racial development of white children in powerful ways.
Many justice-committed white parents have a desire to raise anti-racist children but are struggling with the “how.” We haven’t yet developed strategies. We haven’t built tools. We haven’t figured out how to have complex and concrete age appropriate discussions with our kids about racial injustice nor have we engaged one another in discussions about what healthy anti-racist development even looks like for white children. We haven’t yet made a daily practice of learning to do what parents of children of color do every day as a matter of their children’s survival.
But we could do these things. And we must.
- We can get curious about how G.’s parents talked to him in ways that enabled him to recognize racism when he saw it and tried to make it stop.
- We can start having hard parent-to-parent conversations about how we as parents of white children educate our own children about police.
- We can engage some of the good resources that exist about how white children’s racial identity develops so we help cultivate their racial health.
More parents out there are committing to such practices. They are convening to share resources and strategies for how to raise race-conscious children. Race-conscious parenting requires explicitly talking about race with our children early and often. It means teaching them early, and in sustained ways, about the pervasive existence of racial injustice. And it involves modeling anti-racist behavior, so they learn from us what anti-racist actions look like.
I realize this short piece only begins to raise the question and offers too few answers. But that’s because we have yet to face and rise to the challenges of PWW and create the answers together.
But we can. And it’s time.
Dr. Jennifer Harvey is ordained in the American Baptist Churches (U.S.A.). A parent, writer, educator and yoga-obsessed member of the faculty at Drake University in Des Moines, IA, her work focuses on encounters of religion and ethics with race, gender, activism, politics, and any other aspect of life in which religion decides to “show up.” Her greatest passion, however, continually returns to racial justice and white anti-racism.
In addition to publishing in a variety of academic and public venues including the New York Times, Dr. Harvey has written several books, the recent of which is Dear White Christians: For Those Still Longing for Racial Reconciliation (Wm. B. Eerdmans). Her next book, How to Raise White Kids: A Parenting Guide in Racially Troubled America will be released in 2018.
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