<p>"Step One: Don’t talk about race. Don’t point out skin color. Be “color blind.”</p>
<p>Step Two: Actually, that’s it. There is no Step Two.</p>
<p>Congratulations! Your children are well on their way to believing that <insert your=“” ethnicity=“” here=“”> is better than everybody else.</insert></p>
<p>Surprised? So were authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman when they started researching the issue of kids and race for their book NurtureShock. It turns out that a lot of our assumptions about raising our kids to appreciate diversity are entirely wrong…</p>
<p>Only 8% of white American high-schoolers have a best friend of another race. (For blacks, it’s about 15%.)</p>
<p>The more diverse a school is, the less likely it is that kids will form cross-race friendships.</p>
<p>75% of white parents never or almost never talk about race with their kids.</p>
<p>A child’s attitudes toward race are much harder to alter after third grade, but a lot of parents wait until then (or later) before they feel it’s “safe” to talk frankly about race…"
<a href=“How to Raise Racist Kids | WIRED”>How to Raise Racist Kids | WIRED;
<p>Well, we live in a pretty diverse part of the LA region. Our S has/had close friends who are Hispanic and Asian … hmm, no African American close friends that I can quickly recall. So he joins that 8%.</p>
<p>Just to add to the discussion. A Caucasian youg woman we know is now a frosh at JHU. She came home for the holidays and regaled us about the “street cred” that she received from other students because she came from the LA region!</p>
<p>Bah - I disagree with that conclusion and think that over-focusing on race and having one’s race central to their everyday being almost guarantees racism to varying degrees.</p>
<p>I take it that the assumption is to raise kids who don’t think they are better than everyone else we should</p>
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<p>and in fact</p>
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<p>but we are finding that</p>
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<p>You mean at a diverse school there are some kids with NO friends from another race? I think the authors would need to clarify what they mean by a friendship. Let’s see, I’m facebook friends with one of the only blacks I went to high school with. I suspect that wouldn’t count as a friendship in the author’s mind, but I’m not sure. And as far as the best friend remark goes, that doesn’t prove anything. It certainly doesn’t prove that white kids are racist.</p>
<p>I don’t know if I would consider Wired magazine as a good source for this kind of information.</p>
<p>I also think it depends on what constitutes a “best friend”.</p>
<p>I have about 10 “best friends”…I could never choose one. </p>
<p>My parents never talked to us about race, and I would never consider myself or any of my siblings racist. We, as well, came from a very diverse part of LA County (FindAPlace, I get “street cred” for that as well here at SSU…interesting, isn’t it?), so we just grew up knowing that race didn’t matter. Yes, I have seen racism in action, but I would never perpetrate it myself.</p>
<p>In fact, I’ve been the victim of it.</p>
<p>Yes, really.</p>
<p>People have told me before, “Oh, you MUST be racist, right? You’re white.”</p>
<p>Or have simply told me all of the ways in which white people are horrible to other races, etc.</p>
<p>Not to play the victim at all. Just trying to add to the conversation.</p>
<p>I’ll join the 8% club. Being a military family, my kids are used to seeing “different colors”.</p>
<p>It’s funny- my best friend is black… something we don’t “talk” about. T is just T - not T- my black best friend…</p>
<p>My kids call her Auntie T. One day my son (about 9 years old) was looking at T and then looking at me. He then asks, mom, how come Auntie P and Auntie A look like us but Auntie T doesn’t? We had never explained to him that she wasn’t a relative but my best friend. So I had to talk to him about how Auntie T is my sister in my heart and not a blood relative. Actually- she’s a better sister than my real sister!!</p>
<p>He said- oh, that’s cool.</p>
<p>And that was the end of that. Both my kids have friends of different colors- black, brown, etc. I think we have taught them that it’s more important to be friends with someone who brings value to their life- has the same interests, etc. Not what color they are on the outside. It really is about who you are on the inside.</p>
<p>Our D’s group of friends had the most ethnically diverse group possible in her school. We rarely talked about race, ever. When I grew up, race was rarely ever discussed either. My best friends are of different races, as have been most of my boyfriends, my staff, and my board of directors. In Hawaii, many people have friends of all races and backgrounds. Race is really not mentioned much.</p>
<p>What does one say about race? It has been irrelevant to me and my kids all our lives. We choose relationships based on the qualities of the individual rather than race. We all have friends of all races and feel it enriches our lives.</p>
<p>There’s a difference between having some discussions regarding race and having it be central to one’s identity and life. Some people just can’t imagine that for some others, not only whites, it’s not a central focus of their lives and that they might have grown up in an environment where they were around other races but on a level where it really wasn’t any kind of factor - i.e. it didn’t matter what the person’s race was and wasn’t a factor in whether they were friends or not. It actually does happen regardless of what some people want to believe. I don’t know why people want to dismiss this reality for some.</p>
<p>So different where we live. In our kids’ very multicultural world, they talk about race <em>all the time</em> with their friends (most are first generation and literally cover 5-8 different ethnic backgrounds). They make good fun of each other, they copy each other, they make comparisons…AND they are close friends. </p>
<p>But where we live, there isn’t a dominant group over another and there is not history looming over them. It is truly a mix: Canadian kids whose parents are originally from US, europe, india, pakistan, korea, japan, china, middle east and south america. They are atheists, agnostics, christians, hindus, sikhs, baha’i (just off the top of my head). One of my kids will go to dinner at a friend’s house and eat pigeon, others will come over to ours, and not be sure how to use the salad tongs. I think it’s fabulous. It’s out there, it’s not buried in sensitive politically correctness, it’s connection, and it’s real.</p>
<p>When a big group of them were over to watch the Olympic opening ceremonies, I thought it was sooo cool that they were as into the country of each of their family’s origin, as they were the Canadian team. To me it spoke volumes.</p>
<p>I don’t know what to think. H and I made a point of not discussing “race” with our kids until they were older. They where usually the only Black kids they knew, all their best friends where usually White or Hispanic. Still true for my D, even though we spent BIG bucks to send her somewhere there would be a more diverse environment. </p>
<p>I love “Wired”, though.</p>
<p>P.S. I hope my son will end up at SSU. I hope he will have some “cred”. He likes to say he’s from Brooklyn (where H and I are from). Recently we visited relatives in Atlanta, and his friends said "Wow! You really ARE Black!</p>
<p>Why? Because I wasn’t beaten? Denied service somewhere?</p>
<p>Prejudice is certainly just as bad as racism.</p>
<p>And I don’t “pretend that races doesn’t matter anymore”. I know that race does not matter to me and my friends. I am very much aware of the racism that goes on for a good many of my peers. As I said, I have witnessed it.</p>
<p>Shrinkrap–is your S a senior or graduating soon? Did he apply to SSU? I’d be happy to give you all a tour if you ever come visit :)</p>
<p>Yes, exactly. For example, it was not illegal in this country for hundreds of years to teach white people to read. That leaves a legacy. </p>
<p>Individuals assuming you are a racist because you are white? That’s annoying and to try to give it more weight than that serves no purpose other than to minimize real racism. </p>
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<p>I’m straight, I do not believe that is central to my identity because I’m part of the majority, I’m “the norm” and I’ve grown up secure in the knowledge that the society I live in will not hinder my rights based on that. In fact, I am richly rewarded for it. My son is not growing up in the same country, so he is aware that being gay is central to his identity. </p>
<p>Of course, there are a lot of people who criticize gays and lesbians who are upfront about it being a central part of their identity. The vast majority of those doing the criticizing are straight. Hmmmm…</p>
<p>I’m just adding this as a resource for the conversation, commending the list of questions on left menu.</p>
<p>Anti-Defamation League’s Preschool Curriculum on raising children without racial bias is research-based, taking into account child development and adult conversations. </p>
<p>*Yes, exactly. For example, it was not illegal in this country for hundreds of years to teach white people to read. That leaves a legacy. *</p>
<p>I am so glad this has been brought up.
I work in the schools volunteering with high school students ( mostly ESL) and reading using this program
[!Guaranteed</a> Reading Improvement and ESL for Children and Adults!](<a href=“http://www.readright.com/]!Guaranteed”>http://www.readright.com/)</p>
<p>The rate of literacy in our country is a barrier for many and it needs to be addressed as much as obesity or unemployment( I bring them up cause they are always in the news)</p>
<p>*Individuals assuming you are a racist because you are white? That’s annoying and to try to give it more weight than that serves no purpose other than to minimize real racism. *</p>
<p>Ha! you are not in Seattle.
[Local</a> News | Racism tough to tackle or even talk about for Seattle School Board | Seattle Times Newspaper](<a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003640838_racesupe29m.html]Local”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003640838_racesupe29m.html)
We have ( all african american women)- a school superintendent who makes more than the governor, we had a chief of district academics ( who recently transferred as a deputy superintendent for a neighboring urban district), and for too long, we had a director of equity and race relations who said that volunteering in your child’s classroom was a “white” value, that individualism and a " future time orientation" were racist, and that only teaching one type of English grammar was racist.
O. K.
:rolleyes:</p>
<p>Wait a minute. I had a teacher once who told the whole class what her sexual orientation was along with her dating status. I thought it was a strange thing to do because it wasn’t relevant to the class and I also don’t think it is terribly appropriate for her to be talking about her personal life to the class. If someone was straight and did this everyone would be thinking why did they just tell us that? But for some reason if a teacher is gay and brings it up then I become homophobic if I would rather she just taught instead of told us about her personal life.</p>
<p>There is another way to look at this. We don’t bring up race because it shouldn’t matter. We don’t discuss it because we aren’t even thinking about it. That doesn’t mean if we are white we think we are better than everyone.</p>
<p>I like Wired too, just not for a sociological study.</p>
<p>In today’s global economy, race, religion, skin color, sexual orientation, etc. – these issues are immaterial. It is good to have exchange with people from different varied background. Of course, I am biased, as I am a person with a color.</p>
<p>D1’s best friend since kindergarten is black. I have no idea how much they’ve ever discussed race, but I’m sure it’s come up. Same D dated a black man in college. D2 doesn’t have any black female close friends but a couple of black male close friends. D2 is the one I posted about who was beaten by a black girl in middle school for racial reasons. I don’t think she’s racist. We visited a small LAC a couple of months ago and when she saw that there were only two or three black faces in their previous yearbook she decided not to apply. I don’t think one should obsess over race but should address it honestly when it comes up.</p>