Newsweek Article - "See Baby Discriminate"

[jedifreac]

This week's Newsweek magazine has a new feature article, "See Baby Discriminate" that talks about researchers' efforts to study children and their perceptions in race. It's a worthy read since both the Avatar: The Last Airbender animated series and The Last Airbender film are targeted towards families and children. One researcher even studied if

Comments

[jade_sabre_301]

That article is so true. Being one of those kids who came home at the age of five having determined that all black girls are mean, I totally support everything they said about kids being aware of race. And the whole part about "making it something we don't talk about makes it more important, even though that's the opposite of what we want to happen" was very well-put (i.e. unlike my summary of it).

Thanks for this! I will have to keep it in mind as I go out in the world and deal with children. :-b

[kittikattie]

This whole article is trufax. And what really bothers me is that these familes chose to stop participating because they weren't comfortable. White families can have the luxury of choosing not to discuss race, and thus making minorities uncomfortable. I never got that luxury, because I learned I was black the first time a little girl told me I couldn't have a white baby doll because I was black. Let's not get into the fact I was called the N word at 6.

[jedifreac]

You want to know what's screwed up? The researchers mentioned in this article are now being sent hate mail by white supremacists and have had to remove their information from the internet. I started looking them up to contact them about Airbender...

[kittikattie]

now being sent hate mail by white supremacists

How novel.

[glass_icarus]

resignation wins out over surprise, yet again. :|

[sidepocket_pro]

This is a really great article, something of a great plot to data mine from. Although I must admit, all it really did was conform a lot of things I already figured out.

I love the whole argument our society does with the whole "Everyone is created equal, racism is so low that there is none." Because we taught an entire generations after WWII to dislike "hate racism", we have compellingly opened ourselves up to "ignorant racism" in it's highest form. Our solution to the issue of racism is to act like it's been solved...when it's not.

Never mind that the whole idea that kids somehow do not know about racism, which is total bull crap because kids learn by observing their environment, their piers and more importantly: what adults tell them the world is like.

Adults are kids, only bigger. And we wonder why parenting is all screwed up.

In short, if you want to have some pure video fun about kids and racism, I can point to the video I've used ever since this special aired:

[rosegilmore]

WOW. That makes me really sad to see that. :(

[sidepocket_pro]

I know it really illustrates it well, right?

See sadly people don't want to read so they skip out on the article above. But you show someone this and well...there is not much to say.

Though I feel that Avatar_Kaiser at AvatarSpirit.net would still try to justify the racism in this. =D

[erikonil]

Of course they would. Because you know someone would pull out the 'it's just a cartoon' trope.

[glass_icarus]

... this article seems like it'd only be news to white parents. ;P it might be interesting to see how white/nonwhite families discuss race in diverse vs. more homogeneous communities, though.

[sidepocket_pro]

The article is essentially a bullet that was fired into the collective brains of the status quo to inform them of what they did not want to hear: The world is not black and white and you screwed up, now fix it instead of ignoring the problem.

[livvylove]

I have to agree with glass_icarus.

I was around 4th grade when I learned racism existed. Of course that took me moving to the south and away from my sheltered multi racial military community to pretty much being one of the few hispanics in the whole school full of white people to realize that racism wasn't just in the history books but still alive.

It was mind blowing to see people segregate themselves based on race because I had never seen that before. I was so use to just hanging out with the kids in my class that it didn't even matter the race. It's not like we were unaware but it just wasn't a big deal.

In the military school it wasn't like our teachers where glorifying the past by not talking about the dirty parts. But the schools in the south even try to glorify the confederates by marginalizing what their wrong doings. I was always floored and yea the teacher hated me because I kept bringing up what I had learned overseas and she would try to sugarcoat it over and over again.