Stocksy

Although race and racism are at the top of Americans’ public discussions, it turns out that most white parents in the US don’t talk about those issues with their kids.

Research on how white parents discuss race with their children is sparse. However, past research has shown that conversations about race, much less racism, are rare, even when these issues are highly visible — for example, during the Ferguson protests in 2014.

One study found that even though 81 percent of white mothers believed it was important to have these discussions, only 62 percent reported actually doing so. Of those who said they did, fewer than one-third of those people could actually recall a specific conversation.

Teaching generations

To examine the issue more deeply, we examined surveys of more than 2,000 adults ages 18 and older, collected from May 21 to June 14, 2020, in four major US cities (Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans and New York City). We wanted to understand how people’s views on race were influenced by their parents.

Our initial findings indicate that among white respondents, 65 percent said their parents had “never” or “rarely” had conversations with them about racism when they were children. In general, we found that younger white people were more likely to have parents who talked with them about about racism compared to those in older generations. Surprisingly, however, those in the youngest age group — 18- to 25-year-olds — were less likely to have parents who talked with them about racism “very often” (only 7 percent), compared to 26- to 40-year-olds (16 percent) and to those 41- to 55-years-old (12 percent).

We found that those whose parents talked with them about racism were themselves more likely to talk with their own children about it. But even during this period of unrest, 27 percent of white parents of children between 6 and 11 years old told us they “never” talked with their kids about the need for racial equality. Another 15 percent said these conversations were “rare,” and 34 percent said they happened “on occasion.”

Missing the point

Research shows that the relatively small number of white parents who do discuss race with their children often use what are called “colorblind” approaches that downplay racism’s significance in American society. These conversations usually involve emphasizing the sameness between all people and minimize or deny the idea of differences between races. Typical themes include “not seeing race” or “treating everyone the same,” which ignore or even reject the existence of white privilege and racism.

These discussions can promote a myth of meritocracy that claims anyone can succeed in the US regardless of their race, a belief shared by 57 percent of the white respondents in our survey. But the problem with this colorblindness is it ignores how racism is embedded in society — for example, in where people live and what kinds of jobs and educational opportunities people have.

Sometimes conversations can also be explicitly or implicitly racist, relying on racial stereotypes premised on the idea of inherent differences between racial groups. Seldom are such discussions anti-racist. An anti-racism conversation with children involves acknowledging racial inequalities and the historical and present-day reasons why they exist. It also includes talking about ways that a child could help actively undo racism and how not to be a bystander when they see it being perpetrated.

Changing perspectives

Our data showed that white people who were taught by their parents about opposing racism and the importance of fighting for racial equality were supportive of doing more to help racial minority groups hit harder by COVID-19. By contrast, people whose parents had never or rarely talked to them about anti-racism were more likely to feel that racial minorities are themselves at fault for their higher death rates from COVID-19.

We also found that parents’ discussions with their kids helped them grow up to have more nuanced views on other aspects of racism in the US. Three-quarters of adults who had, as children, talked with their parents “very often” about racism said that racial minorities do not have the same opportunities as whites. A similar share (69 percent) said race plays a major role in the types of social services that people receive, such as health care or daycare, and 69 percent also agreed that race plays an important role in who gets sent to prison.

Of the adults whose parents “never” or “rarely” talked with them about racism, fewer than half (47 percent) said racial minorities have different opportunities than whites. Similarly, fewer than half of these people felt that race plays a role in the types of social services people receive or in incarceration (49 percent and 48 percent, respectively).

Resisting racism, challenging racist societal structures and advocating for equity have been an uphill battle shouldered predominantly by individuals, families and communities of color. Our research indicates that the more white parents talk with their children about the realities of American racism, the more aware those kids are, as adults, of inequalities in American life.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Watch David Chae’s TEDxGrandRapids talk here:

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

David Chae ScD will be joining the Department of Social, Behavioral, and Population Sciences at Tulane University, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in September 2020, where he will serve as Associate Dean for Research. He is an elected fellow of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, the honorary senior scientist society for those whose research is at the interface of behavior and medicine; Associate Editor of the journal Health Education & Behavior; and on the Editorial Board of Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology. His research focuses on the social determinants of health inequities and the psychobiology of racial minority stress.

Leoandra Onnie Rogers PhD is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University. Her research curiosities lie at the intersection of psychology, human development and education. She is interested in social and educational inequities and the mechanisms through which macro-level disparities are both perpetuated and disrupted at the micro-level of identities and relationships.

Tiffany Yip PhD is a Professor of Psychology at Fordham University. Her research focuses on ethnic identity, discrimination, and sleep among ethnic/racial minority adolescents and young adults. She is an Associate Editor for Developmental Psychology. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science, and her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Molly Mendoza

Many people want to help in the ongoing struggle for equality and equity, but they don’t know what to do.

Activist DeRay Mckesson explains how we can all show up and stand up:

1. Own your privilege.

“Acknowledge that there is a privilege you have [if you’re white], and use the privilege to disrupt that privilege itself. I’ve had people say to me, ‘Well, I didn’t benefit from white privilege.’ [You need to realize] every Band-Aid in this country looks like your skin and not mine, baby dolls look like you, and the color ‘nude’ is your skin color. That’s what the privilege of whiteness looks like — it’s not about what you’ve done; it’s about what society does when it treats white as normal. It’s about you saying, ‘I have privilege, I have power, and I will seek out how I can use that privilege and those resources. I’ll ask marginalized people, ‘What is the help you need?’ as opposed to just saying, ’I think this is what you should do’.”

2. Talk about what’s uncomfortable and what’s important.

“There’s no winning in silence. If we allow white supremacist ideology to spread without being challenged, people continue to replicate it. And the question is: what do you do? You need to talk about it — you can’t change what you don’t talk about. And while we’ve had a great conversation [in the last year] about the symbols and about Confederate monuments, there is still so much work to be done that we actually don’t talk about — like what to do about police violence, or bail, or rehabilitation for people who are coming out of prison, or the opioid crisis. You don’t always see the trauma — it doesn’t show up in the same way as a man running a car through a crowd of people — but the impact on people’s lives is as disastrous as anything else.”

3. Be strategic in what you say and how you say it.

“People don’t respond well to being shouted down at the dining room table. If your goal is to change somebody’s mind, that isn’t the most effective strategy; if your goal is to make a point, then that isn’t an effective strategy. Try to show people what you mean, as opposed to just saying, ‘I’m right.’ It’s a long-game solution. Rarely do people come out of one conversation and say, ‘You know, my whole worldview has changed.’ It’s about setting a foundation, so that people over time can change. This isn’t everybody’s work — some people are much better at having conversations than other people.”

4. Activism isn’t just about protests and marches — it means voting, too.

“Many of the things that will change people’s lives are structural, so it’s about voting where you are and pushing for or against legislation in your city and town. Use your institutional power to change structures and systems. Who shows up to the hearings about police violence? Who is working on welfare reform? Who is working on bail reform? Are you willing to come out for three weeks of hearings, sit, and say, ‘This is an issue that is important to me, too’? Even when it may not be convenient? That’s what it means to show up.”

5. Figure out where and how you can do the most good.

“I think there’s a role for everybody. The things I care about might not be the things you care about, and vice versa, which doesn’t mean they aren’t all important. For some people, their space is being on Twitter and on Facebook and pushing out messages. There are some people who are better in the street than I am, and some people who need to skip the street because they can just go to the governor’s mansion. If the governor is your friend and you can talk to him in his dining room, do that. We don’t all need to play the same role. The cacophony of all of us doing work together will actually lead to systemic change.”

6. Start where you are.

“Harriet Tubman knew that something could be done. She started where she was and started small, and it turned into the Underground Railroad. It can often start with you and another person, or you and two people, having a conversation about what the world can be and here are the steps you can take. You need to take concrete steps — small ones, like steps on a ladder — to get to systemic change. Ask people what they need, stand in concert with those who’ve been doing the work longer than you, listen, ask more questions than talk. Those are all the hallmarks of the people I’ve seen who are the most effective.”

7. Ask yourself: what do I want the future to look like?

“When we think about resistance, we focus almost exclusively on the absence of oppression. We think: How do we end mass incarceration? How do we stop the disparities with regard to police killings? How do we stop police killings altogether? But when we tear down these repressive, oppressive systems and structures, something has to replace them, something that’s better.

For example, we know there will always be rules, there will always be people who break the rules, and there will always need to be consequences. Do the people who enforce those consequences have to be the police? No. Does that enforcement have to mean prison? Absolutely not. We need to spend more time now talking about potential solutions. How do we help people imagine a conception of safety that doesn’t center on the police? How do we help them imagine a world where every adult can read? How do you help people dream in a big way that will actually change lives? It’s hard because we haven’t lived in that world before. But it doesn’t mean that world’s not possible.”

8. Feel the fear — and act anyway.

“Martin Luther King said, ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’ It bends, because people bend it. There are so many people who understand the power they have. They’re standing up across the country when the odds look like they’re against them, and they’ve learned to make sure fear doesn’t overpower everything else even if fear is still present. There are just so many incredible people who are willing to put something on the line to make the world a different place. That gives me hope.”

These remarks were taken from a Facebook Live conversation conducted with DeRay Mckesson at TED headquarters in New York City. To learn more, watch the video.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Deray Mckesson is a civil rights activist, organizer and educator. He is also the host of the podcast “Pod Save the People.”

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

BIO

A few years ago, TED-Ed Innovative Educator Kristin Leong was leading a classroom discussion in Washington State about racism, identity, and To Kill a Mockingbird, when one 8th grade student raised his hand and observed, “Ms. Leong, you’re the only teacher of color in the whole school!” Kristin describes the rest of this conversation — and three of the gaps separating students and teachers in American public schools — in a riveting TEDx Talk about her TED-Ed Innovation Project, Roll Call. Below, learn more about the idea behind this innovation, and get some tips on how to bridge the gaps in your school.

IDEA

In American public schools, there are gaps separating students and teachers, including: race (a majority of students are kids of color, while over 80% of teachers are white), gender (about half the students are boys and visibility of transgender students is on the rise, while almost 80% of teachers are female), and sexual orientation (one study showed that the majority of young people ages 13-20 now identify as “something other than 100% heterosexual,” while it is still complicated — and in some instances unsafe — for LGBTQ teachers to be out). How do these gaps affect teachers and students? “All students deserve to see adults who look like them in leadership roles,” says Kristin. “And all students deserve to have a wide range of adult role models in their lives who offer different perspectives than what they’ve grown up with.”

INNOVATION PROJECT

Roll Call is a portrait and storytelling project that humanizes the gaps separating students and teachers, while celebrating the ways that students and teachers connect despite divides. Two questions guide this project: 1) What do you have in common with your students/teachers? 2) Does it matter that students and teachers have things in common? “I’ve been asking teachers these two questions for the last year, and repeatedly I’ve been surprised and inspired by how these two seemingly simple questions spark such powerful reflection and conversation,” says Kristin in this Teacher2Teacher interview. “The powerful stories featured on Roll Call are an incredible testament to people’s ability to care for and engage with others who are not like them.”

Below, read Kristin’s tips on how to bridge the gaps in your school:

• Have conversations with your students and colleagues about who they are and where they come from.
• Share about who you are and where you come from with your students and colleagues.
• Shoot portraits of your students and let them shoot portraits of you. Feel what it’s like to trust someone with a camera. Resist the safety of selfies.
• Remind your students that talking about race isn’t racist. Resist claiming “colorblindness” as a substitute for having challenging conversations about race.
• Talk with your students about gender as a spectrum. Share about your own identity on the the gender spectrum and how it may have changed throughout your life. Ask your students about the pressures they feel to live up to gender stereotypes.
• Post a rainbow sticker on your door and let students know that your classroom is a safe place for LGBTQ people and for people who have LGBTQ friends and family members. Speak up every time you hear “gay” used as a pejorative.
• Call students by the name that they wish to use. Learn to pronounce their names correctly.
• Use RollCallProject.com in your classroom as a tool to connect with your students and fuel conversations in your school. Take pictures and share your experience on Facebook and Instagram (@rollcallproject) using #rollcallproject.

This article is part of the TED-Ed Innovation Project series, which highlights 25+ TED-Ed Innovation Projects designed by educators, for educators, with the support and guidance of the TED-Ed Innovative Educator program. You are welcome to share, duplicate and modify projects under this Creative Commons license to meet the needs of students and teachers. Art credit: Shutterstock.

Angélica Dass / Humanæ

Teachers often use TED Talks in the classroom to introduce a lesson topic or to frame a student discussion. Here are 10 TED Talks about race in America that teachers may find useful for starting difficult conversations in the classroom:

1. We need to talk about an injustice

In an engaging and personal talk — with cameo appearances from his grandmother and Rosa Parks — human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson shares some hard truths about America’s justice system, starting with a massive imbalance along racial lines: a third of the country’s black male population has been incarcerated at some point in their lives. These issues, which are wrapped up in America’s unexamined history, are rarely talked about with this level of candor, insight and persuasiveness.

2. How to overcome our biases? Walk boldly toward them

Our biases can be dangerous, even deadly — as we’ve seen in the cases of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner, in Staten Island, New York. Diversity advocate Vernā Myers looks closely at some of the subconscious attitudes we hold toward out-groups. She makes a plea to all people: Acknowledge your biases. Then move toward, not away from, the groups that make you uncomfortable. In a funny, impassioned, important talk, she shows us how.

3. How to raise a black son in America

As kids, we all get advice from parents and teachers that seems strange, even confusing. This was crystallized one night for a young Clint Smith, who was playing with water guns in a dark parking lot with his white friends. In a heartfelt piece, the poet paints the scene of his father’s furious and fearful response.

4. A tale of two Americas. And the mini-mart where they collided

Ten days after 9/11, a shocking attack at a Texas mini-mart shattered the lives of two men: the victim and the attacker. In this stunning talk, Anand Giridharadas, author of “The True American,” tells the story of what happened next. It’s a parable about the two paths an American life can take, and a powerful call for reconciliation.

5. My road trip through the whitest towns in America

As America becomes more and more multicultural, Rich Benjamin noticed a phenomenon: Some communities were actually getting less diverse. So he got out a map, found the whitest towns in the USA — and moved in. In this funny, honest, human talk, he shares what he learned as a black man in Whitopia.

6. Does racism affect how you vote?

Nate Silver has data that answers big questions about race in politics. For instance, in the 2008 presidential race, did Obama’s skin color actually keep him from getting votes in some parts of the country? Stats and myths collide in this fascinating talk that ends with a remarkable insight.

7. The untapped genius that could change science for the better

Jedidah Isler dreamt of becoming an astrophysicist since she was a young girl, but the odds were against her: At that time, only 18 black women in the United States had ever earned a PhD in a physics-related discipline. In this personal talk, she shares the story of how she became the first black woman to earn a PhD in astrophysics from Yale — and her deep belief in the value of diversity to science and other STEM fields. “Do not think for one minute that because you are who you are, you cannot be who you imagine yourself to be,” she says. “Hold fast to those dreams and let them carry you into a world you can’t even imagine.”

8. How we’re priming some kids for college — and others for prison

In the United States, two institutions guide teenagers on the journey to adulthood: college and prison. Sociologist Alice Goffman spent six years in a troubled Philadelphia neighborhood and saw first-hand how teenagers of African-American and Latino backgrounds are funneled down the path to prison — sometimes starting with relatively minor infractions. In an impassioned talk she asks, “Why are we offering only handcuffs and jail time?”

9. Color blind or color brave?

The subject of race can be very touchy. As finance executive Mellody Hobson says, it’s a “conversational third rail.” But, she says, that’s exactly why we need to start talking about it. In this engaging, persuasive talk, Hobson makes the case that speaking openly about race — and particularly about diversity in hiring — makes for better businesses and a better society.

10. The beauty of human skin in every color

Angélica Dass’s photography challenges how we think about skin color and ethnic identity. In this personal talk, hear about the inspiration behind her portrait project, Humanæ, and her pursuit to document humanity’s true colors rather than the untrue white, red, black and yellow associated with race.

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