Raising White Kids in a Racially Unjust America

I’ve always been interested in the subject of racism in our country and what we can do about it. This interest or attunement to the issue came about long before my family became multi-racial. My mom tells me that she recalls I would correct adults as young as age five when witnessing racial jokes and say “That’s not nice. Please don’t tell those jokes.”

I also remember times in my teen years awakening to how biased our educational system is. Examples range from the teachings about our forefathers to Columbus “finding” America, to the distortion of the U.S. size on the world map to how a box of crayons spoke messages to me as a very young child, teaching me that the color Flesh was peachy colored. After I was old enough to see the pervasive, innate racism in our culture itself I started to question if it were even possible for the U.S. to produce a non-racist white person. The answer to this question could mean that I myself was racist whether intentionally so or not.

This post isn’t to criticize anyone, but rather to ask for some introspection to see what we are missing. We can all acknowledge the terrible wound that racism has caused in our country and continues to cause. If we are not part of the solution, we are part of the problem.

Sometimes when I’ve heard people say things like, “I don’t understand what “they” are so upset about. I didn’t put anyone in slavery,” I wince at the lack of understanding. There is especially a lack of understanding in generational implications. Anytime you find yourself or others using the pronoun “they” in a conversation referring to people as “groups” stop and question the direction of that conversation. It is at these times we have to be vocal on our own views and offer with love a different perspective. Disagreeing with others can feel uncomfortable, but how can a new thought arise and take flight if we don’t offer one?

Raising White Kids by Jennifer Harvey, from our own Des Moines, has many great examples of how we can raise white children to better understand the racial landscape in America and how to navigate it with more compassion and honesty. Many people of my generation were taught to be “color blind.” The author says “Color blindness while well-intentioned leads us to a space where reality isn’t acknowledged.” Clearly, a toddler sees differences in skin color just as we see differences in nature overall, which we are a part of. It is far better to acknowledge the diverse beauty in our world and honor it. When you tell a child to “not see color” that feel false to them. They quickly learn that skin color is something to fear and deny. It shuts down the conversation before it can even begin.

The author also says “Racism is like a smog, that comes from everywhere, not just parents.” Just by being white in our country, and especially where I live in the midwest, our children pick up on messages without us saying one single word. When they go to the doctor’s office, church, when they see different neighborhoods or visit friend’s homes our children take in the reality of how our country has handled racial differences in a way that produces inequality.

I don’t pretend to be an expert in this area, but I am someone who wants to learn more. Reading books like this one and Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson are ways I can continue to open my eyes and start to see through the smog that surrounds us.

Just Mercy

I read Just Mercy on the tails of The Sun Does Shine, which is the story of a man who spent 30 years on death row as an innocent man. Just Mercy is the book by his attorney who gained him his freedom.

Some of the facts I learned from Just Mercy are astonishing. America has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. The prison population has increased from 300,000 people in the early 1970s to 2.3 million people today. There are nearly 6 million people on probation or parole. One in every fifteen people born in the US in 2001 is expected to go to jail or prison; one in every three black male babies born in this country is expected to be incarcerated. There is an estimated sixty-eight million Americans with criminal records. We have a system that continues to treat people that are rich and guilty far better than those that are innocent and poor. Most of us do not understand the big business behind incarceration, including millions of corporate dollars spent to lobby for more prisons.

No one is saying there aren’t dangerous people who need to be kept separate from society, sometimes for life. But, when our error rate on death row hovers at 10% and corruption, racial bias, the inadequate legal defense for the poor and killing the mentally incapacitated are all a part of our system you have to ask why we can’t do better than this.

Mass incarceration has not led us to feel safer in our homes. It hasn’t helped our communities. It certainly hasn’t helped our poorest communities.

This is not ‘their’ problem. There is no “they.” There is only us and these are our problems. I want to see the truth, even if it’s painful. I want to see the truth, even if that means I am wrong. I want a better world, not just for my children, but for all children. I want to be part of creating a world where joyful, loving interactions between people of different skin color isn’t a novelty that goes viral on social media, but something you witness every single day in our world.

• “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
• “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”
• “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

I want to learn how I can be more a part of the solution. I hope this post will encourage you to welcome introspection and candid conversation in your own life.

• Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not. ~Dr. Seuss

In Love, Light and Faith,

Dawn