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AC360 Kids On Race: Why Telling Our Kids Racism is Bad Isn't Enough

Treat everyone the way you want to be treated.



I'm fully aware that people may read what I just wrote and think I'm out of my mind. In fact, I'd totally understand if you thought, “Why unfortunate? That’s exactly what parents should be saying to their kids.”

But the reality is that for most parents, that’s all we say. We keep it general because we often don't understand or admit to ourselves our own feelings about race. So we believe we are imparting our values and that our children will turn around and value people equally regardless of race.



Specifically, the show investigates a concept known as "subconscious racial bias." This is described as "a bias that kids pick up on from messages they hear at school, at home, the characters in the TV shows they watch, what they see online." As Killen points, these are not overt feelings of racism, but rather "the things that we're not aware of, the things that we do when we don't realize it."


No doubt this a very uncomfortable thing to do. Think about how awkward people get about even talking about race difference. Like when a young child describes an African American person as a black person and the parent shushes the child. Or when we are describing a person of color to someone else and we'll describe everything about them except one of their primary physical traits--the color of the skin. It's laughable except for the fact that those shushed children learn that there's something inherently so shameful about these people with darker skin that a physical characteristic can't even be named and dancing around a subject never gets us to authentic dialogue.


So tomorrow night my children will be very happy when I tell them they get to watch TV after they do their homework--and then we'll watch the show and discuss it over dessert. I don't want my children living in a race-blind society. I do want them living in a racism-aware society. Kids on Race is a great way to do help me do that.


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