Learning Race
[This is cross-posted from my class blog dedicated to my freshman writing course.]
In Even Babies Discriminate, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman take on the ever-more common idea that if we just don’t talk about race, the problem of race will disappear and all the little babies will grow up to be racially colorblind. As their research points out, however, this is simply not true. Children raised by parents who, with all the best intentions, avoid talking about race still see race and, more significantly, still make judgments based on what they see around them, which includes not only race but their own parents’ avoidance of the issue.
As it turns out, children are observant and perceptive; they notice their parents’ avoidance of the issue and, many times, they read meaning into that avoidance that is unintended by the parents (for instance, believing that their parents don’t like people of different races because they don’t talk about them). Furthermore, children are naturally predisposed to group people by commonalities, and race is one way that they do this-unless they’re taught to do otherwise.
What this indicates, then, is that maybe if we want a nonracist future we actually need to keep talking about race. I’ve seen on several occasions the bumpersticker or T shirt that says “No child is born a racist.” Well, this may be true, but no child is born colorblind, either. Children have to be taught how to deal with racial differences, gender differences, differences in ability, religious differences, etc. They can be taught to be racist or sexist or bigoted in any number of ways. Or they can be taught to be antiracist, to believe in equal rights, and to treat people who are different from them with respect. The key is that they have to be taught. If they’re not taught, they will learn anyway, but, given the messages they receive from the rest of the world, they may not learn what we would prefer.
In Even Babies Discriminate, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman take on the ever-more common idea that if we just don’t talk about race, the problem of race will disappear and all the little babies will grow up to be racially colorblind. As their research points out, however, this is simply not true. Children raised by parents who, with all the best intentions, avoid talking about race still see race and, more significantly, still make judgments based on what they see around them, which includes not only race but their own parents’ avoidance of the issue.
As it turns out, children are observant and perceptive; they notice their parents’ avoidance of the issue and, many times, they read meaning into that avoidance that is unintended by the parents (for instance, believing that their parents don’t like people of different races because they don’t talk about them). Furthermore, children are naturally predisposed to group people by commonalities, and race is one way that they do this-unless they’re taught to do otherwise.
What this indicates, then, is that maybe if we want a nonracist future we actually need to keep talking about race. I’ve seen on several occasions the bumpersticker or T shirt that says “No child is born a racist.” Well, this may be true, but no child is born colorblind, either. Children have to be taught how to deal with racial differences, gender differences, differences in ability, religious differences, etc. They can be taught to be racist or sexist or bigoted in any number of ways. Or they can be taught to be antiracist, to believe in equal rights, and to treat people who are different from them with respect. The key is that they have to be taught. If they’re not taught, they will learn anyway, but, given the messages they receive from the rest of the world, they may not learn what we would prefer.