by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Brian Johnson

Imagine these words set to music…

What can you expect from filthy little heathens? Here’s what you get when races are diverse. Their skins are hellish red; they’re only good when dead. They’re vermin, as I said, and worse, they’re savages. Barely even human…They’re not like you and me, which means they must be evil.

Beneath that milky hide there’s emptiness inside. I wonder if they even bleed. They’re savages, barely even human—killers at the core. They’re different from us, which means they can’t be trusted.

Now, imagine your child memorizing and singing them over and over and over again.

This exchange from Disney’s Pocahantas (1996) is just one of thousands of scenes in mainstream Hollywood films targeted at young children. What have your children internalized from watching these animated “family friendly” films?

“Difference” is a common theme in these types of films, and unfortunately, the overwhelming take-home message is that difference is not good—or, at least, it’s a major hurdle to overcome.

Critical engagement with diversity and multiculturalism provides an opportunity for parents, teachers and learners to challenge ethnocentric assumptions and the manners in which we have been shaped by educational institutions, religious traditions, community leaders, family systems, and yes, the mass media.

As parents, we have to take seriously the idea that popular film can be a vehicle for social commentary, analysis, and criticism. We should examine both how a film works as a cultural medium and how and why it affects the viewer the way it does. We should learn how to use popular American films to understand competing perspectives on American history, culture, and society. Continue Reading »

It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for another gratuitous cute kid pic!

Anti-Racist Parent Kellie writes: “My baby Ruthie is already 8 and she strives to be a super model. On our budget not sure how quick that will happen . Ruthie wears a womens size 8 shoe and towers over everyone in 3rd grade. She’s growing too tall too fast!”

If you’d like to submit a pic to us, please email us at team@antiracistparent.com. Please include a caption we can use, and let us know what name (first name only or pseudonym is fine) we should use for you, the parent. Thanks!

Click here to view past gratuitous cute kid pics .

by guest contributor Catherine Bray

When my husband and I decided to adopt a baby in 2006 we put on our happy “never have done this before and don’t know what’s in store” faces and told our caseworker that we didn’t care about race. We told her that we just wanted a healthy baby girl and that was it.

Afterwards, my husband and I began to discuss race and what bringing a baby into our home that was from another ethnic background might mean to us as a family, as parents, and as middle class white people from the ‘burbs. We had a 2-year-old son, Porter, at the time.

The more we talked about it the more we realized that race did matter. We needed to be honest with ourselves - could we nurture and care for a baby from a background that we had no personal experience in? We finally decided that we wanted to adopt an African-American girl because we felt strongly that she would be a part of an amazing journey for our family.

When we first started discussing this with our family and friends, there were mixed reactions. While many were excited for us, some people questioned why we had any desire to adopt outside of our race. We also got a lot of negative reactions about our ability to be able to manage and care for her hair and skin. We took all of this in stride and started to educate ourselves on the proper care for an African-American baby.

A neighbor of mine came over one day to our house and after seeing several African-American pieces of artwork, books and photography, she commented that we were certainly prepared. What she didn’t know was that all of those things had been purchased prior to our decision to adopt a child. She inferred that the only reason we had these ethnic pieces were because of our impending adoption. It did not occur to her that we would acquire these pieces throughout our lives just because we liked them. Shortly after we finished our paperwork, our baby was born and the birth parents chose us to be her Forever Family. We packed up our things and flew to Texas to be greeted with the newest addition to our family, Gracie.

As an adoptee, I had prepared myself for all of the unknowingly hurtful things people can say and do when asking about the adoption. I knew the comments and “looks” would be very frequent since Gracie is obviously a different race the rest of the family. However, quite a few of the reactions and comments dealt mostly with the difference in race than our adoption. There is never a time that I don’t feel more like the parent of a little black daughter then when I’m out and about running errands. I have been called “the babysitter” more times then I can count. I believe that the reaction to verbally address me as “the babysitter” comes more from the idea that people do not like to encounter things that they do not understand then from the fact I’m so young looking. To place me in the babysitter box, it allows them to categorize me without looking further.

I have been stopped numerous times to be consulted on what I should be doing with my daughter’s hair. I personally think her hair looks great and that I do a kick ass job, however it seems that a lot of women feel otherwise. I am constantly stopped, in the middle of the store, and told exactly how I am failing as her hairdresser. I have been given thousands of names of products and devices to make her hair straighter, fuller, grow faster and be more manageable. My daughter is only 18 months old people, give me a break! When I need the help I ask for it and I tend to ask people that I know, not strangers at the store.

Since we adopted Gracie we have seen a dramatic transformation in our family. It’s amazing what holding a sweet infant in your arms can do to some of the deep-rooted racism that is taught and sometimes passed down unknowingly to future generations.

We have a large extended family. There are some who had trouble relating to Gracie or understanding why we would adopt outside of our race. In an attempt to give the impression that they were not bothered by her race, some family members have mentioned physical qualities about her that are stereotypically African American. They say, “she’s going to have a big butt, I can already see it” or “her hair is going to be a problem, what are you going to do?” Some relatives even told us that they would not love Gracie as much as Porter and then tell us it has nothing to do with race. Continue Reading »

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Deesha Philyaw

As the mother of two girls who do not live under rocks, I have not been able to escape the whole princess thing. A few years back, when my oldest was in kindergarten and my youngest was an infant, I wrote a column (for another site) about how, as I kid, I had embraced media messages that promoted a “white is right” standard of beauty (show of hands: Who else wore the white towel on her head to become Farrah Fawcett’s character on Charlie’s Angels?). I didn’t want my own daughters to go down this path:

…I take a special interest in the media images my children consume, as do most parents I know, regardless of race. I don’t rely on entertainment executives or book authors to affirm or protect my children. That’s my job. But I do seek out age-appropriate books, movies, and other media that reflect the diversity of the world in which we live, with characters who look like us and the people we know and love.

But what about fairytales and the other “classics,” those all-white, generations-old stories and characters that are presumed staples of American cultural literacy, likely to turn up as “Jeopardy” questions? We love “The Sound of Music” and “Mary Poppins”, but quick: Name an American children’s classic featuring a black cast. The good, but depressing “Sounder”?

Should classic stories and movies be avoided then because they tend to feature all-white casts? In our family, we sometimes take a “don’t ask-don’t tell” approach. For example, we simply don’t do princesses. I never told my older daughter, T, about Sleeping Beauty and company, and she never asked about them.

Until this year. Nearly every girl in T’s kindergarten class is infatuated with princesses. I have an aversion to princesses. Actually, I have an aversion to pretty much anything that invites McDonalds or Burger King to stick a related action figure into a kid’s meal. But I find princesses especially grating. I don’t like the helplessness thing, the dependence on a man to feel complete…thing.

Thankfully, T isn’t anywhere near as obsessed with princesses as her peers. With the exception of the “Wonderful World of Disney’s” Cinderella [featuring singer Brandy in the lead role, and Whitney Houston as the fairy godmother], we’ve managed to avoid Disney’s offerings of the I-need-to-be-rescued princess tales…

You see, back then, I was able to write about the princess thing fairly calmly, fairly rationally. These days, when the princess-mafia has my youngest daughter’s preschool on lock? Not so much.

I am so over the whole princess thing. Over it.

I want Cinderella to develop hammertoes from jamming her anatomically-impossible feet into completely impractical glass slippers. I want Belle and her books to go to a library far, far away. I want Sleeping Beauty to keep hitting “snooze.” Here, Snow White…have an apple. Continue Reading »

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Dawn Friedman

When we decided to pursue a domestic adoption nearly five years ago, my husband and I – both of us white – decided that we were open to adopting transracially. We were naïve about this – we really didn’t understand the challenges for children adopted transracially – but when we started researching agencies we made note of their cross-cultural adoption programs.

We are in Columbus, OH and we wanted a local agency. We knew we didn’t want to adopt across state lines because things get iffy when you start mixing up adoption laws. (Every state has its own rules and regulations.) Also we were hoping for an open adoption and I knew it would be unlikely that we could have regular visits between our family and our child’s birth family if airfare became an issue.

We narrowed it down to three agencies in our city. (One other agency had religious requirements we would not meet being an interfaith Jewish/Christian family.) Only one called us back and that’s the agency we chose.

The three agencies we looked at all had separate programs with different costs that were dependent on characteristics of the child – namely children with “special needs” or of African descent cost less to adopt. White kids, kids of mixed race not including black – it’s the full fee to adopt them. Black kids and kids with special needs – about half. *

(I know this isn’t new to most of the people reading Anti-Racist Parent – is’s less expensive to adopt black babies in lots of states. My friend and anti-racist parent colleague, Deesha Philyaw, has done a lot of research about this and I’m sure she’ll share some of her thoughts.)

When we approached the agency we offered to pay the full fee and take whatever baby came our way. The social workers told us that we had to choose a program and that given that we were open to “any race,” we would be placed with a black child because there were fewer waiting parents in that program.

“You may as well get the fee break,” one told us. “Because if you are open to adopting a black baby, you will get a black baby.” Continue Reading »

It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for another gratuitous cute kid pic!

Anti-Racist Parent Christine Peebles writes: “These are two of our greatest blessings, Andrew Prasad(7) our ‘giving saint’ from India and Sky(6) our ‘fierce debater’ from Guatemala. At 20 months apart they are twins at heart. They both love learning about different cultures and races, and often proudly announce their birth countries to new acquaintances.”

If you’d like to submit a pic to us, please email us at team@antiracistparent.com. Please include a caption we can use, and let us know what name (first name only or pseudonym is fine) we should use for you, the parent. Thanks!

Click here to view past gratuitous cute kid pics .

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Liza Talusan

I’ve been thinking a lot about the issue of how to teach, expose, and experience diversity in a “diversity-free” zone (thanks for the segue Tami!). I directly experience this issue personally and professionally every single day of my life as the Director of Intercultural Affairs at a small, private college in the Boston suburbs, where there are very few students of color. Not only are there very few students of color, there are very few people who have ever met or talked to a person from a historically underrepresented group prior to coming to college. So, each and every single day, I actually get paid to teach diversity in a diversity free zone.

I could certainly go on and on about the challenges of my job serving as a person who is often tokenized in meetings, being the go-to person on issues of diversity, or being the “brown friend” to well meaning people. But I’m assuming here at Anti-Racist Parent I’d be preaching to the choir. So, rather than give my vocal chords a workout, I thought it might be helpful to share the toolbox I heavily rely on each day to teach diversity in a diversity free zone. Reading the comment threads, I also realize that there are people who read ARP who aren’t necessarily parents (broadly defined) but who are teachers looking for ways to add diversity to their classrooms or to their curriculum. So, I hope this at least starts some helpful ideas for people looking for some ways to grow as Anti-Racist Parents:

• Turn to your local college. Many colleges have offices like mine - they are called a variety of names: Multicultural Office, Student Activities, Affirmative Action office, Diversity Office, etc. These offices/organizations typically have the responsibility of hosting diversity related events, especially during heritage months like Latino Heritage Month, Black History Month, Asian Heritage Month, etc. Check their websites and see if they have a list of programs (or ask if you can get an email copy of their programs). Call ahead and ask if the program is “family friendly” first, though, if you intend to bring small children. In my case, of the 30 or so programs a year that are diversity related, almost 1/2 of them are family friendly! And, I always love when I get calls from the community asking if they can bring students, children, etc. The other great bonus about tapping into your local college is that the programs are often FREE. At some colleges, specific groups are required to perform community outreach - you may find a number of sororities and fraternities or service organizations sponsoring these events. Again, please call to make sure they are family friendly!

• Diversify your library at home. Intentionally buy or borrow books that have diversity represented in them. In our house, we have a great mix of children’s books that have stories around cultural diversity. If your local library does not have them, a number of online sellers will have them. If I’m looking for a particular book, I tend not to go to a mainstream online seller; rather, I find a cultural organization online to see if they have any links to recommended books. By going with cultural organizations rather than mainstream, I get a more accurate description of the book and the position of that cultural group. For example, when I was looking to purchase some children’s stories that were centralized around the Native American experience, I went online to a mainstream retailer, and a number of recommended titles came up. But, when I went to the cultural organization’s website, I found these exact recommendations under a heading “Books That Promote Stereotypes of Native Americans.”! Woah! So, I was really glad I had taken the few extra seconds to see if the books were supported by that group. I think this is incredibly important!

• Continue to read educational and well written blogs .. like Anti-Racist Parent of course! While you may not be surrounded by diversity, we are often surrounded by ignorant comments. So, reading blogs like ARP give you the tools and understanding to be an “Agent of Interruption.” And, if you are educated, you will pass that education on to your children (or students). I work in a predominantly white institution and am often, by default, the diversity educator. But, since finding Anti-Racist Parent, Racialicious and some of the blogs of people who write here, I have assigned reading these blogs as HOMEWORK assignments to my students! It’s helpful for them to see that there are others out there who share the same language and passion for interrupting racism. Continue Reading »
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by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Paula, originally published at Heart, Mind and Seoul

A little over a week ago, I received a phone call from a woman who happens to work with my mom. This woman, K., is only a few years older than I am and has three children; her youngest child is in the same grade (Kindergarten) as our daughter.

Apparently, my mom has been doing some grandmotherly boasting about her granddaughter, which led to various conversations between my mom and K. about the school where K’s children attend. It’s a relatively small preparatory academy that is highly regarded by several fellow educators and parents that I know. Before our daughter started Kindergarten, I actually did a fair amount of research on this school and though I strongly believe that its academic rigor would have been well suited for our daughter, I ultimately was looking for a more diverse student body than this school had to offer. (According to the school’s website, almost 93% of the student body identifies themselves as White.)

One of the reasons K. called was to tell me more about the school in case I was interested in applying for the next academic school year. I told her that my main concern was the lack of racial and ethnic diversity amongst the student body.

“Well, it’s true that most of the students are White, but we do have some diversity. Our school has plenty of Orientals,” she said proudly.

I literally cringed, grateful that she couldn’t see my face. I don’t think I’ve heard the “O” word to describe Asians since my grandmother’s 90 year-old friend referred to me as such. And even that was over 10 years ago. And the way she talked about the school “having plenty of Orientals” was unsettling to me. It was as if she was noting how many Bunsen burners each science class had in its possession.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how many Asians would you say there are in each grade level?” I asked. I knew immediately that her interpretation of “plenty” and my own definition of the word would vary greatly.

“Let’s see,” she said. “There are about 35 students in each grade level and probably two Orientals in each grade. Some grades might have as many as three.”

She went on.

“One of the things I love about the school is how they expose the kids to different cultures. My son learned about Kuonzie (I’m fairly certain that she meant Kwanzaa, but it came out phonetically as Koo-On-Zee) and my other son did a special project for Chinese New Year.” Continue Reading »

by Carmen Van Kerckhove

Yes, this blog is still alive. I’ve just been really sick for the past couple weeks and have fallen far behind. Bear with me, we’ll get back to our usual schedule soon. Thanks.

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Tami Winfrey Harris

I miss the city sometimes.

It occurs to me that my family and I have traded something important to get a suburban one-acre lot with a fenced in backyard, a quiet, tree-lined street, an aura of safety and a school system that offers education with all the trimmings. We’ve traded the rhythm and texture of urban life, including the kind of multicultural existence that raises racial consciousness and understanding, and makes one feel connected with the world’s citizens.

I have always considered it to be a blessing that I came of age in a “mixed” neighborhood. My black family was among the first to integrate what had been a white community on the southern shore of Lake Michigan. My elementary school photos, taken during the early influx of families of color and before white flight began in earnest, reveal a mix of smiling young faces: black, white, Hispanic, Indian, Filipino.

Since my formative years, I have lived a host of places: From a largely homogenous Iowa college campus to a re-gentrifying Chicago neighborhood that was a mix of races and ethnicities, haves and have nots. I have always felt most comfortable in places that embodied the “melting pot” ideal—the sort of places where you can smell the scent of Indian food on Friday night, hear strains of mariachi music on Saturday morning or maybe a little bass bumping from some dusty R&B.

I love places like that, but I know that they are rare. I’m no social scientist, but I would venture a guess that many, many Americans are not so acquainted with people of other races and cultures. At best, we see our “Asian friend” or “black friend” or “white friend” at work and then retreat to our segregated neighborhoods and social groups and churches. At worst, we make assumptions based on TV news and Hollywood distortion, and rarely see a person who is different from us in real life. For all our talk of diversity in this country, we don’t know each other very well.

So, when public discourse turns to race, as it has in the 2008 presidential election, the mainstream is shocked to find that black people are angry about America’s racist past and present; and black people are shocked that anyone could be shocked, given the very real prejudice we face every day.

No, we don’t know each other at all. Continue Reading »

It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for another gratuitous cute kid pic!

Anti-Racist Parent Jeff writes: “My daughter posing with a garden snail we came across at a friend’s house during our January 2006 trip to Malawi to visit my wife’s parents.”

If you’d like to submit a pic to us, please email us at team@antiracistparent.com. Please include a caption we can use, and let us know what name (first name only or pseudonym is fine) we should use for you, the parent. Thanks!

Click here to view past gratuitous cute kid pics .

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Maegan “la Mala” Ortiz

I live along what is arguably the most diverse subway line, in the most diverse borough, of the most diverse city. This has provided me with more teaching moments than I would like. Lessons that I knew I would have to teach my 10 year old daughter anyway but wish I could on my terms, not as a reaction/defensive/protective move. As a NYC mami, you teach your kid the basics of safety. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t make eye contact. Watch what you touch. But as the NYC mami of a brown young woman, the lessons go beyond that. They go to the core of who she is and her budding sexual identity.

Lesson 1 : Language, Status, and Mami Has More Privilege Than You

When we take the Flushing bound 7 subway home between 5:30 and 6:30 pm, there is a certain fear in my 10 year old’s face. We’ve run into him twice already, a towering white older man who pushes his way into the elevator with us and other mamis wielding strollers, toddlers and shopping bags at 74th Street Roosevelt Avenue. Once on the elevated platform, he continues to push himself through the overwhelmingly brown crowd without a word of excuse me. Instead he yells, “What, people in Mexico don’t have manners? Do you speak English. Do you understand me?” He gets unsettlingly close to a mother with a small girl. The mother looks away as does my daughter, who moves closer to me. He eyes her and me and looks confused, like he’s not sure if she is my child. I don’t look like the other mothers, but my children look like their subway mates, undeniably Latina.

When the train rolls into the station people swarm towards the doors. Again the man begins is tirade, “Esperate!” he says with his New York accent. “Wait and let me the f**k through”. He looks at my girls and me again and when the doors open urges me to go in before him. I take a seat offered by another rider and he gives my 10 year old a push towards me, “Stay close to your mother” he orders her before sitting next to the mother with the young girl. “Do you speak English?” he asks the mother. The mother doesn’t answer with words or gestures. She avoids eye contact.”Do you speak English?” he asks her again, a little louder, a little more threateningly. “Don’t you want to be an American?” He angrily asks her, not really expecting an answer, not really understanding that the Latina mother likely already considers herself an Americana. Centroamericana, Latinamericana. “Damn immigrants,” he spits out, before exiting the train at Junction Boulevard.The scene repeats itself one more time, on another subway ride. Continue Reading »

by Anti-Racist Parent Columnist Jae Ran Kim

A few months ago my family reached a new milestone in our lives as a multi-racial family. My 14 year-old daughter has her first “boyfriend.” I have to admit that I have long been very curious about who my kids would choose to date. In our home, we have tried to be very careful about being as inclusive as possible with the subject of dating/relationships. My partner and I have never placed the expectation that our kids would be heterosexual, for example, speaking of future “partners” instead of “husbands” or “wives” and talking not about marriage, which is a heterosexual privilege, but of commitment ceremonies and partnerships. We’ve tried not to assume or project an expectation that they would have children or parent someday either.

The benefit of that is having a child who is open-minded to the possibilities of all kinds of love relationships. So when my daughter told me this week that she and a boy at school had decided to be “girlfriend and boyfriend” I was more than thrilled to find out her boyfriend is not white.

And then that got me thinking. It’s not that I disapprove of her dating someone who is white. Her father, my partner, is white. So why was I secretly pleased that my daughter was dating a person of color?

I have had to confront some biases lately and it’s been uncomfortable. I’ve had to think about if I have been non-verbally encouraging my kids to date people of color. And if so, is there some hidden racist reason for this?

I also had to wonder whether I am secretly living out my own latent desires, having had no opportunity to date people of color. I was raised in such a white town and had no opportunity to date people of color in high school. By the time I was in college I was already engaged to my partner.

I wanted my kids to have a broader experience, more choices. I feel better when I surround myself with diversity. My kids have been raised to appreciate and celebrate all of their ethic heritages and maybe my fear was that if they partner with white persons they would think of or value their Korean heritage less - or that they will be less likely to hold on to their identity as a multi-racial person. Which I know is an assumption as many people, myself included, have held on tightly to our multi-racial and multi-ethnic identities despite having relationships with white partners.

I realize I’m worrying about my kid’s future partners a little on the early side; after all, my daughter has just started to date. She’s only at the beginning of her dating life.

I once asked her if she found herself more interested in boys who were white or boys of color.

“It doesn’t really matter. Except that if they’re white, they’d have to ‘get it’” she said. “You know, they’d have to understand racism - like, really get it.”

So now, my job is to be open and supportive. And trust that she will choose someone who is good to her, no matter who she brings home for dinner.

Jae Ran Kim, MSW is a social worker, teacher and writer. She was born in Taegu, South Korea and was adopted to Minnesota in 1971. She has written numerous articles and essays and is most recently published in the anthology “Outsiders Within: Writings on Transracial Adoption” from South End Press. Jae Ran’s blog, Harlow’s Monkey, is at http://harlowmonkey.typepad.com/

It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for another gratuitous cute kid pic!

Anti-Racist Parent Cinds writes: “The cutest 18 month old Ethiopian triplet boys (Tsega, Bereket, and Sira) in the world have a hard time sitting still for a Christmas photo in their new and beautiful duds from Ghana, a gift from their grandma.”

If you’d like to submit a pic to us, please email us at team@antiracistparent.com. Please include a caption we can use, and let us know what name (first name only or pseudonym is fine) we should use for you, the parent. Thanks!

Click here to view past gratuitous cute kid pics .

Below is a double entry of sorts. The first is a slightly revised recent blog entry. The latter is an unpublished piece that another parenting website found “too partisan” to publish back around the time of the 2004 election. It’s important to me that my children are informed and active participants in the political process, even as young as they are (currently, ages 4 and 9). Tonight, we’re heading over to our local Obama headquarters to do our part.Read on…

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Deesha Philyaw

“Hey, Mom! We’ve got Obama and Clinton FIGHTING!”

Say what?

My oldest daughter, Taylor, age 9, and a friend (also 9) are in the next room playing computer games. Last I checked, the game was Club Penguin. So of course, this little announcement from my budding Don King warranted an investigation.

Seems Taylor and friend ventured onto an online gaming site I’ve never heard of and found a game called “Street Fight” which lets players pit the two Democratic front-runners against each other mano a mano (y pie a pie) in front of the White House as a group of…who? undecided voters maybe?…looks on. Of course, Bill has to make an appearance as well.

I asked Taylor which candidate she’d chosen for the battle. You would have thought I’d asked her if she was wearing clean underwear. “Obama, Mom!”

If it were up to Taylor and the other third graders at her school, Obama would win Pennsylvania’s April 22nd primary hands down. Recent lunch and recess conversation has centered on HRC as “a sore loser”, “not playing fair,” and, inexplicably, “against young people.”

In our house, we’ve talked in age-appropriate terms about what the candidates stand for, and about the historical moment–how our next president could be the first woman or the first black person to hold the office. A year ago, Taylor–who in 2004 had been a die-hard Kerry supporter, complete with button on her preschool backpack, and a mean side-eye to neighbors with Bush signs in their yards–voiced her support for Clinton: “We’ve had boy presidents before, but we’ve never had a woman president before.”

Me: “We’ve also never had a black president before.”

Taylor: “I know. But I still want her to win. And then I can be the 2nd woman president when I’m old enough.”

Fast forward one dirty campaign season later, and my girl is all about Obama. My support of him apparently carries less weight than the negative stuff she’s heard about HRC from her peers at school, most of whom are white. I confirmed much of the chatter she’d heard about HRC, and this strengthened her resolve.

Back to “Street Fight”…How this gaming site got past the parental control filter I have installed, why Taylor went to a site we’ve never discussed before, and the consequences of violating my “No fighting games at Mommy’s house” rule…are all topics beyond the scope of this blog entry. What I’m thinking about here is what kids are learning about politics, elections, and civility from watching this current campaign season unfold. Unlike me at her age, my daughter realizes that elections are about more than just casting votes. More innocence lost, but I have mixed feelings about this. By the time my kids are old enough to vote themselves, they will be far more savvy about campaigning and politics than I was when I cast my first vote. I was mostly clueless and hopeful. My wish for them is that as voters they would be wiser, critical, maybe even cynical, but not completely jaded. And somehow, still hopeful. Continue Reading »

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Paula, originally published at Heart, Mind and Seoul

Let’s say you and your young child decide to go on a picnic at a park that happens to be within walking distance from where you live. You carefully pack up all of the necessary items that you require for your outing and you decide to leave the stroller at home so that your child can stretch her legs in earnest. Soon enough, you and your child come up to an intersection, and though it’s not a heavily trafficked area, there certainly are enough cars that do frequent the road - some of which travel at a pace that could be considered downright dangerous. You immediately recognize the opportunity for a teaching moment to introduce your child to the importance of road safety. You quickly weigh your options in how to best convey the most effective message about keeping your child safe around moving automobiles.

After evaluating your options on how to proceed, you eventually decide to take an unconventional approach and let your child cross the street by herself, just to see what happens. Sure, you know it’s probably not the smartest thing to do, but you feel fairly comfortable in your assumption that most drivers will be responsible enough in looking for kids in the crosswalk. Besides, it just takes so much time to have to teach a child about ALL of the different case scenarios in road safety. And who wants to talk about a topic that be downright depressing and even uncomfortable, you know, having to talk about fatalities, accidents and such. And after all, your hunch is that your child probably wouldn’t be too receptive to it anyway, so why bother in the first place?

And inevitably, as your child wanders aimlessly into the road, completely oblivious to her environment, she does unfortunately happen to get into an accident. Well, you think, she’ll just have to learn to do a better job of watching where she’s going or develop a thicker skin. After all, who’s to say that the driver wasn’t just having a bad day or that his speeding wasn’t as serious as it appeared, I mean it’s not like there’s verifiable proof that the driver was intentionally trying to hit your child. Drivers will be drivers, you tell your kid. No need to be so sensitive, especially if it’s not a full-blown, overt and obvious kind of impact to your child. Getting hit by a car is just a normal part of growing up; there’s no good reason to make it a bigger deal than it needs to be. Bottom line: There will always be bad drivers out there regardless of what you do or say. It’s best just to accept it, bandage up your wounds and move on.

Of course it’s ridiculous to think that any parent would ever send their child out into a street without any kind of preparation, any kind of guidance, any kind of modeling or any kind of instruction that would help protect their children’s physical safety. But what about the kind of preparation, guidance, modeling and instruction that helps protect and defend our children’s emotional and psychological safety when it comes to confronting and addressing the impacts of racism, prejudice and discrimination?

In a comment I left on Jae Ran’s recent post over at Harlow’s Monkey, I referred to a message I read that was written by a parent of a child who is adopted transracially. The parent talked about hoping that her daughter would never get teased, feel “that” out of place or be the target of racism, discrimination or prejudice and would try to do everything possible to prevent any racist or discriminatory act from ever happening to her little girl.

With all due respect to that parent and others who may hold the same sentiments, I personally feel that any energies expended in sheer “hoping” could be better utilized by actively working towards giving their children the language to recognize, address and validate what I believe are the inevitable acts of racism, discrimination and prejudice that their children will face one day. And trying to implement every last precautionary measure to successfully prevent any kind of exposure to racism, discrimination and prejudice is, in my opinion, an impossible feat at best and nothing more than an exercise in futility. To me, it’s akin to saying that you’re going to do everything possible to prevent your child from growing up. Continue Reading »

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Liza Talusan

My children seem to have a knack for asking me really deep, thought-provoking questions at the most inconvenient times. Usually this is when we are racing out the door, late for school/work/day care. This time, it happened on the way to driving my sister, a kulingtan musician, to teach at a cultural school in Boston.

“Mommy, what am I?” says my 4 1/2 year old daughter, Joli, from the backseat of the car.

“What do you mean, ‘what are you?’” I ask, as I glance into my rear view mirror for a hint of meaning on her face.

“Like, what kind of kid am I? Okay, Filipino. But, then… then.. what’s the other kind of kid I am?”

“Puerto Rican? Do you mean Puerto Rican and Filipino? Daddy is Puerto Rican. Mommy is Filipino. So, that makes you Puerto Rican AND Filipino.”

“But, Mommy, what am I FIRST? Am I Puerto Rican FIRST or am I Filipino FIRST?”

“You’re BOTH first,” I reply, with echos of my mentors on biracial identity models and child development theorists prominently ringing in my ears.

“Will Daddy get mad if I want to be Filipino FIRST?” says Joli in a voice barely loud enough for me to hear her.

“Honey, you are not something FIRST, you are both ALL THE TIME.”

“Well, don’t tell Daddy, okay, Mommy? But, I’m going to be Filipino first.”

(cue my breaking anti-racist heart!)

With nearly all of my friends and extended family members identifying as biracial or multiracial — but being neither of those myself — I am very sensitive to situations that individuals find themselves in when it comes to the “choosing” question. I knew that external influences would eventually lead my children to ask the questions. I just didn’t think one of them would ask me questions at age 4 1/2!

Joli seemed fairly happy with my assertion that she is both all the time. I engaged my husband that night in conversations about where she might be getting these messages. I’m quite confident that my family — made up of all interracial couples and children — isn’t giving her the message that she must choose or prioritize. In her diverse pre-school, I have to imagine that they are not giving her those message either. Dora? Sesame Street (given Deesha’s recent post)? Or is it some of those awful Disney shows that we allow her to watch, but only with a parent watching with her? Continue Reading »

It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for another gratuitous cute kid pic!

Anti-Racist Parent Matt Lyons writes: “My wife and I thought we should submit this pic of our daughter Victoria. She fell asleep practicing writing her name. Too cute.”

If you’d like to submit a pic to us, please email us at team@antiracistparent.com. Please include a caption we can use, and let us know what name (first name only or pseudonym is fine) we should use for you, the parent. Thanks!

Click here to view past gratuitous cute kid pics .

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Paula, originally published at Heart, Mind and Seoul

On numerous occasions in the past, I’ve been fairly unsuccessful in trying to convey how many times I’ve felt that the messages and attitudes perpetuated by our society about adoption often leads me to feel that I am reduced down to nothing more than a commodity. . .a tangible item that people with the right kind of credentials and qualifications can pick out and pick up. . .a product that in theory, shouldn’t be available for return, but in fact, sadly is. . .an object that is believed to come from some other place, manufactured by another country instead of being born to two living, breathing human beings.

And time and time again, I’m told that somehow along the way I must have lost my sense of humor or the ability to empathize or that I should really try harder see other people’s points of view. After all, they probably had good intentions behind whatever it was they said or did.

So I’m trying to find the humor and the good intentions behind these t-shirts. But I have to be honest; I keep coming up with nothin’.

I don’t think any of us would be especially pleased to hear our child referred to as an “it”, an object, an import or a scrap. And yet, I don’t see how these t-shirts aren’t committing the exact same offense.

I get that parents are excited and proud of their children and their families. I understand that many of the messages in our society about adoption infer that adoptive families somehow aren’t as worthy or as “real” as those who claim a biological connection only. But I don’t see how these kinds of t-shirts and the scores of others like these do anything but undermine the legitimacy of their own family and especially the dignity of their child. Do people really feel that they need to slap a t-shirt on their child to proclaim to the world that their kid, too, is indeed an American? Seems to me that those confident enough in their own skin as adoptive parents wouldn’t feel the need to use their child as a moving billboard to announce any such kind of message. Continue Reading »