Manhattan Group Urges Parents to Talk to Their Children About Race

One Manhattan organization is trying to get parents to talk to their children about race, especially when the conversation gets uncomfortable.

Border Crossers, a Manhattan-based organization that holds workshops for parents and teachers on how to talk to children about racism, is compiling a list of resources it believes could be helpful for people who are hesitant to talk to the kids in their lives about recent high-profile cases of police brutality.

"There's this fear that talking about race will put ideas in kids' heads," said Benny Vásquez, co-executive director of Border Crossers. "But kids are actually really hungry. They're seeing race and racism and they're looking to us as adults to have real conversations."

The issue of police brutality against people of color has come to the forefront of the media in the past few years in light of the murders of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling and several other black people at the hands of police officers. These tragedies seep their way into children's common knowledge and become conversation at their dinner tables and on their playgrounds. Younger and younger children are becoming exposed to a crime scene on Facebook Live and reporters live tweeting from a scene of violence.

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Many parents are fearful of broaching the topics of racism and racially motivated violence with their children. But Border Crossers wants parents to know that talking about race with their child isn't something to be scared of.

"The research shows that regardless of what a parent may say to a child, a child is internalizing bias from the world, from film, from how people react to each other, as early as 2 years old," said Laura Shmishkiss, co-executive director of Border Crossers.

Reuters spoke to Wajeedah Jones, a 37-year-old mother in Baton Rouge, Louisiana whose 6-year-old son told her his 13-year-old brother had shown him the graphic video of the police shooting of Philando Castile.

"The worst thing in this environment is not talking about it, being silent," said Megan Madison, a trainer with Border Crossers.

Some of the misconception among parents is that naming skin color is bad, Shmishkiss said. But kids realizing somebody might look different than them and stating it is purely developmental. The worst thing a parent can do is shut down a child when the child is naming a skin color they see. Instead, a parent should ask the child more questions about their observations, Vásquez said.

"I'd say, 'Yeah, Johnny is brown. What other people do you know with brown skin? What else do you notice about Johnny? What color are Johnny's eyes? Is Johnny short or tall?'" Vásquez said.

Madison suggested adding, "I love the color brown, it reminds me of chocolate. What does brown remind you of?" or "Sometimes in our world, people think brown is bad, and that's not true."

An article published in the New York Post at the beginning of July stirred controversy when it covered a program at the Bank Street School for Children, a private K-to-16 school on the Upper West Side, as if it were telling white children to be ashamed of their whiteness and forcing them to heap "praise and cupcakes" on their black peers. The Bank Street School's program splits children into groups based on their races and have them discuss their racial identities. The fact that race is being named at all is what angers people in the Bank School situation, Vásquez said.

"One of the things that causes concern with these groups is that whiteness is clearly being named. And if we look at the curriculum of many of our schools, where whiteness is consistently being experienced but not named, it only becomes an issue when it's actually named," he said.

Border Crossers holds trainings and workshops for parents and teachers on how to talk to kids about race. If you're interested in attending one for teachers, it's on Sept. 24. The one for parents is coming up on Oct. 15.

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