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Teaching a more open-minded generation

by Melanie Ford
Zenith City Weekly

ast time we talked, my friend JJ, a fifth–grader, was bummed because a boy at school said JJ did something and it wasn’t true. JJ was expecting to be called to the principal’s office. "I didn’t even know what ‘the N–word’ was until he said I called him that."

There are different scholarly thoughts about whether children are naturally aware of racial differences and prefer children of their own race or whether they are taught to see differences as undesirable.

In NurtureShock: New Thinking about Children (New York: Twelve, 2009), authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman reviewed several studies that suggest the developmental window in which kids learn to interact more with children of another race begins as early as three years and closes by third grade. Explicitly addressing racial differences before this window closes will increase their acceptance of racial diversity.

One study concluded that non–White parents are around three times more likely to discuss race with their kids than White parents, 75 percent of whom never or almost never talked about it.

I certainly got the impression from my parents that it was impolite to speak about the color of another’s skin, just as I shouldn’t say loudly that a person was fat. But there’s hope that race will be a less taboo subject in families and it may be easier for the next generation of parents to openly discuss it.

The Pew Research Center found 60 percent of "Millenials," those born after 1980, are "extremely positive" about interracial marriages. Sixty–one percent of Millenials identify as White, a much lower percentage than older generations. Nine million Americans consider themselves mixed–race—up 134 percent from 2000, according to 2010 U.S. Census data.

But Millenials need to be taught. Peggy McIntosh, a Doctor of Education and anti–racism activist, suggests a school curriculum that recognizes multi–racial and cultural frames. She encourages teaching about the arbitrary nature of our place in the world, that we come into a world with many kinds of social, cultural, linguistic, and political systems and our location in those systems influences us.

Since some systems have created discrimination and disempowerment, we must recognize unearned advantages and work within or despite those hierarchies to limit harm and increase common good—heady stuff for preschool and elementary students, but maybe it should be required material for high school and college degrees.

Even very young children notice differences and, when they comment about a person’s skin color, it’s a learning moment that can begin a lifelong recognition that, although we aren’t all the same, we can be friends and should all have the same opportunities.

Melanie Ford is a lawyer in Duluth. She is on the Board of Directors of Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial, Inc. and a community representative on the steering committee of the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative. Both groups work to eliminate racism and the disparate impact of political, social, and governmental policies on people of color.

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