MLK Day: Kids need less shielding and more education about racism
Martin Luther King Jr.’s life is easy to teach to small children; he inspired Americans to fight against injustice, treat each other with respect and he worked to make the world a better place.
But it’s much harder to help them understand why he died. Why did a bad man kill a good man because his skin was brown?
That’s the predicament I found myself in last week after my first-grader, who recently studied King in her after-school program, served up a list of questions and statements about his death. She knew Dr. King was brown and the man who hurt him was white.
She couldn’t understand why one man hurt another man because his skin was different. Her final question was this, “Mommy, is someone going to hurt me because I’m brown?”
That one cut.
Slavery started 400 years ago but the slaying of nine black church members by a white supremacist happened in 2015. The Charlottesville protest against white nationalism was in 2017, and a young white protester was killed. We all know church, synagogue and mosque attacks aren’t decades old historical markers.
I’m not thrilled about
how the message concerning King’s death was delivered to my 6-year-old. But I won’t shut down an opportunity for my children to learn about race and racism because it’s hard.
Later that night, me and my husband reintroduced the topic to her in a way we felt was more suitable.
Our version went something like this: “Someone did hurt Dr. King because that person did not like his message that all people were created equal….That person hated Dr. King’s message and he was wrong….We were purposefully made to look different and we should embrace all of our colors just like you enjoy using different colors in a crayon box….We celebrate MLK Day to remember his life and we keep his legacy alive in our heart by loving ourselves and others.”
Were our words perfect? Probably not.
But some education is better than none when it comes to shaping how our children’s see race and, specifically, how they should view racism.
A recent study showed too many parents are avoiding direct discussions with kids on this topic. Especially white parents.
The Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization that produces the 50-year-old show Sesame Street, recently released a survey looking at parents and educators’ perceptions of children’s social identity development. Last year, they surveyed more than 6,000 parents of kids ages 3 to 12 across all 50 states, and more than 1,000 educators from pre-kindergarten to fifth grade.
The report showed the overwhelming majority of parents aren’t discussing race very often with their children. Almost of third of parents surveyed said they never discuss race with their kids. When those talks do happen, it’s usually being initiated more by black parents (22%) than white parents (6%).
The report also showed conversations about race are often prompted by negative incidents in communities or schools. Parents who say they experienced at least one negative comment about their child’s identity are usually from minority or marginalized groups: Muslim (46%), black (40%) and Asian (32%).
Basically, families of color are engaging in discussions about race and sometimes racism far more than white families, who can delay or even opt out of an uncomfortable conversation altogether.
I didn’t enjoy explaining why Martin Luther King Jr. died. Of course I want my kid to believe the world is perfect. But that’s not the truth.
King’s life and the manner of his death is a part of our complicated American history. And black families shouldn’t always have to be the lead voice on this conversation.
In fact, I wonder what the world would be like if more white parents opted into these conversations earlier to help set their children’s minds against racism, since we know early childhood education has the greatest impact.
Teaching children how to love themselves and others is a wonderful start. But teaching children, more plainly, that people who hate people because of their skin color are wrong and we have to stand against that is powerful.
We have to start teaching anti-racism.
So what does that look like?
Buying toys of different races to normalize representation. If your neighborhood is racially homogeneous, take your kids to places where they can socialize with people of different backgrounds. Encourage children to cheer for other racial groups when milestones are achieved, like having multiple black beauty queens in one year. But also acknowledge why it’s a big deal. Buy and read books to your children about people who don’t look like them.
That way, when children see television shows or sit at lunch tables where diversity is not reflected, that will be abnormal.
Information empowers children with a foundation of truth. The absence of information opens the door for incomplete or false beliefs in their young minds.
Dr. King sacrificed his life to advance equality, change laws and mindsets, especially those of young people who helped lead the Civil Rights movement. The least we can do is talk about it.