If children of color have to be aware of the realities of racism, white children should too.
I’m tired of hearing that white children are too young to understand the consequence of their words or actions when for nonwhite kids they live with the impact of racism every day
This post reminds me of an interesting (and also very embarrassing) story from my childhood.
I had a grating relationship with another girl at my daycare/rec center when I was around 8 years old. I don’t know why we didn’t like each other very much— we just didn’t hit it off well and it never improved until we were around 11. We argued over a lot of petty things, sitting as far apart from each other as we could when we’d have programs together.
We wound up getting into an argument one day over some toy and exchanged insults back and forth, and I wound up calling her the n-word— naturally, this shocked her and a few of the people around us, and I got in deep trouble for it and got a stern talk from my parents.
Before that, I didn’t understand the context of the word. I’d heard it used in media directed at people with dark skin, but in my 8-year-old mind, it was some sort of descriptive insult like “four-eyes” or “pizza-face”. It had no historical or social meaning to me, because I’d never been taught what it meant until I’d already hurt someone with it. It’s a pretty shining example of why these kinds of things are important to teach to all children, not just those affected by it.
I think about that day a lot, even 17 years later. The two of us eventually came to terms despite that, but I still hate that it ever had to happen.