The Minefields of Parenting and Race  🔗 **Source:** [The Minefields of Parenting and Race](https://share.snipd.com/episode/797e62df-369e-422e-b3d3-9f553a6e8060) ## Highlights - **Ask What Really Scares Your Child About Race** - Probe a child's stated fear by asking what specifically worries them about encountering Black kids rather than dismissing the reaction. - Dr. Cassandra Harewood recommends parents explore underlying anxiety and not ignore or minimize the conversation, even without immediate answers. Transcript: Speaker 5 Says her 12-year son, who's also white, is afraid of black people. Oh, here we go. He has brown and black coaches, though, karate instructors, teammates, classmates, teachers, etc. But neither of us has friends of color that we see regularly. So it's often when he's on the playground near our house and sees a certain group of kids who are loud, gregarious, sometimes swearing, talking loudly, that he becomes frightened and Then attributes it to black people in general. When we go to new parts of town, he asks if it's a black neighborhood. When we went to a new pool in Camden, he was afraid because most of the kids were black, even though he ended up having a lot of fun. He goes to a great school that has spent a lot of time discussing events in the news around race and social injustice. So the conversations are definitely happening around him. I don't let his observations go unchallenged, but he's 12. So the more I talk, the less he listens. Is this just the process of learning and growing for him? I know I'm going to keep the conversation going as he matures, but I'm wondering how I can help him connect the rational information he learns to the emotional situations he experiences. Okay. Gene Demby To help us out with this very tricky question, we're bringing in our teammate, Karen Grisby-Bates. She's also the only mother on the CoSWISH team. Welcome, KGB. Shereen Arisomaraji Hey, y'all. Hey, Karen. All right. So what do you think? What would you do if your 12-year was afraid of black people? Karen Grigsby-Bates Well, my 12-year back then was black, still is, and he's 26 now. So if he were afraid of black people, I would be really worried. But for this 12-year I called an expert. B.A. Parker My name is Cassandra Harewood. I specialize in child and adolescent psychiatry. Karen Grigsby-Bates And Dr. Harewood is not surprised that this 12-year is anxious. She says the current climate makes a lot of people anxious, no matter what their age is, including her. What's important here, she says, is that when this boy starts to articulate his anxiety to his mom, you know, I'm scared to go there, Are there going to be a lot of black kids there? Mom needs to probe a little deeper. B.A. Parker I would encourage her to explore that a little bit more. So it's full of black kids and what? What about that is bothersome to you? What about that concerns you? What about that worries you? And it's okay if she doesn't necessarily have the answers for him. It's having that dialogue. It's having that discussion and not ignoring it and not pushing it down and out. Shereen Arisomaraji Karen, did she talk about the media and exposure to certain images or any of that as part of the problem? Oh, yeah, she did. Karen Grigsby-Bates Popular culture is full of scary images of black people and men in particular, from TV to movies to video games. Black men are often shown as violent and predatory and aggressive. And Dr. Harewood says if there are no real life examples in this kid's life as counterbalances, like we don't have a Gene Denby to bring over to his house to have dinner with him so he can sit here. I don't know how to feel about that. Reasonable. Shereen Arisomaraji She did mention in the question that she doesn't have any friends of color that they see regularly. Karen Grigsby-Bates Right. She did, which means that mom is part of the problem, but it also means she could be part of the solution. Here's Dr. Harewood again. B.A. Parker Some of the onus does lie on the parents to help create those experiences. Children don't necessarily do that on their own. So Dr. Karen Grigsby-Bates Harewood says the parents need to get out of their comfort zone and consciously broaden their social circle, which will help the child. Even if they're not comfortable with it, she says, you're thinking, I'm going to do this for the good of my child. Gene Demby Yeah, I remember the last time we did an episode where we got the reader questions, and one of the experts we spoke to said something like, you know, if your kid is taking all these ideas From you, right, of like who you love and who you trust and who you think is important enough to be in your house, and all those people are white, then those are also very subtle signals About who is valuable, right? Like who can be trusted that you're passing on to your child. Sure. Karen Grigsby-Bates We had a funny conversation at the end of this because I said to her, you know, for a long time, I was the only black kid in all of my classes and in lots of venues where, you know, you were just Sort of doing that I'm integrating it thing. And I don't remember being afraid of white people. And she said, well, it's harder for white people because they're in the majority. And so they think this is how the world should work all the time anyway. And when the shoe's on the other foot, it takes them a minute to readjust. But the parents are going to have to readjust if they want their child to be able to move out into the world as it becomes increasingly diverse. ([Time 0:07:39](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a35175f3-a128-425b-b9da-eb11814a0630)) - **Deliberately Expand Your Child's Social Circle** - Consciously broaden your family's social circle to include regular, positive contact with people of color. - Dr. Harewood says parents must get out of their comfort zone and create real-life counterexamples to media stereotypes. Transcript: Karen Grigsby-Bates Friends of color that they see regularly. Right. She did, which means that mom is part of the problem, but it also means she could be part of the solution. Here's Dr. Harewood again. B.A. Parker Some of the onus does lie on the parents to help create those experiences. Children don't necessarily do that on their own. So Dr. Karen Grigsby-Bates Harewood says the parents need to get out of their comfort zone and consciously broaden their social circle, which will help the child. Even if they're not comfortable with it, she says, you're thinking, I'm going to do this for the good of my child. Gene Demby Yeah, I remember the last time we did an episode where we got the reader questions, and one of the experts we spoke to said something like, you know, if your kid is taking all these ideas From you, right, of like who you love and who you trust and who you think is important enough to be in your house, and all those people are white, then those are also very subtle signals About who is valuable, right? Like who can be trusted that you're passing on to your child. Sure. Karen Grigsby-Bates We had a funny conversation at the end of this because I said to her, you know, for a long time, I was the only black kid in all of my classes and in lots of venues where, you know, you were just Sort of doing that I'm integrating it thing. And I don't remember being afraid of white people. And she said, well, it's harder for white people because they're in the majority. And so they think this is how the world should work all the time anyway. And when the shoe's on the other foot, it takes them a minute to readjust. But the parents are going to have to readjust if they want their child to be able to move out into the world as it becomes increasingly diverse. ([Time 0:10:59](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2fe855e4-294e-46a8-9fb1-740938cf7761)) - **Test Scores Mask School Realities** - Test scores often reflect students' socioeconomic background more than school quality or teaching approach. - Amy Stuart Wells warns standardized metrics miss school climate and curriculum differences, so visit schools and meet principals before deciding. Transcript: B.A. Parker My name is Amy Stewart-Wells, and I am a professor at Teachers College at Columbia University. Gene Demby So Amy is an expert in race and education, and she said that she was curious about how much information this letter writer and her husband have about their local schools beyond what they See online, if they've ever visited the schools, talked to the principal, stuff like that, because she said that the numbers, they often belie the range of performance in the school, Let alone a whole school system. But Amy also just took issue with their premise because she said that school performance tends to be evaluated by test scores. And the school's test scores tells us much less about attitude than they do about race and class. B.A. Parker We tend to make assumptions about schools based on the race and class of the students. And then we use the test score data to validate that without actually going and seeing what's happening. And the single highest predictor of your child's test scores, even though we all want to think some kids are really super gifted, is the parents' education level. Gene Demby And Amy says that, you know, test scores, they can't really tell you about what the learning environment in the school was actually like. B.A. Parker When we're only looking at performance as measured by test scores, which is usually the way we measure it, we're missing a whole lot of things that are really powerful and important. So if this is their neighborhood public school, I would at least encourage them to go and spend some time there and talk to the principal and understand more about the curriculum and The teaching in the school, and then to think what is important for their Not all schools are the same. Not all schools provide the same curriculum and teaching. And not all kids do well on standardized tests, even when they're very talented and gifted. Gene Demby Amy said that, you know, so every school is different. But generally speaking, sending a middle class kid to a school that is, quote, low performing like the ones here, that doesn't really have much impact on the middle-class kids' performance. Their scores don't go down. They don't decrease. The opposite, though, the opposite is true. The more middle-class kids there are in a school, the better the test performance will be for the kids from the lower-income families. And Amy says, like, look, if you go to your local school and you've talked to the principal and examined their curriculum and the philosophy of how they teach there, and you've done your Homework and you've done your due diligence, and you decide that the school near you is just not the right sort of like pedagogical like fit for the way your child learns that's a different Equation but you at least sort of owe it to both your child and uh to like your community to do the legwork and give your local public school a chance everybody is incentivized to think About their own kid. ([Time 0:13:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d554f958-80f6-413f-9e7a-a2a9ae012175)) - **Visit Schools Before Choosing Private Education** - Do the legwork: visit your local public school, review curriculum, and talk to staff before excluding it as an option. - Amy Stuart Wells says middle-class enrollment usually helps overall school performance and equity. Transcript: Gene Demby Said that, you know, so every school is different. But generally speaking, sending a middle class kid to a school that is, quote, low performing like the ones here, that doesn't really have much impact on the middle-class kids' performance. Their scores don't go down. They don't decrease. The opposite, though, the opposite is true. The more middle-class kids there are in a school, the better the test performance will be for the kids from the lower-income families. And Amy says, like, look, if you go to your local school and you've talked to the principal and examined their curriculum and the philosophy of how they teach there, and you've done your Homework and you've done your due diligence, and you decide that the school near you is just not the right sort of like pedagogical like fit for the way your child learns that's a different Equation but you at least sort of owe it to both your child and uh to like your community to do the legwork and give your local public school a chance everybody is incentivized to think About their own kid. ([Time 0:15:27](https://share.snipd.com/snip/212a0c7e-54c6-4e4b-98c9-55f7e9ed6890)) - **Let Kids Express Gender While Adding Representative Role Models** - Allow gender-expansive play (nail polish, Frozen, emotions) while surrounding the child with diverse Black role models and media. - Jen Jackson and Mark Anthony Neal recommend providing age-appropriate Black representation to normalize varied gender expressions. Transcript: Speaker 4 Yeah, so... There's something about that question. Gene Demby There's a lot about that question. There's a lot of things about that question. Speaker 4 Yeah, that question has everything in it. I think the first part is how are race and gender and gender expression all connected and how is that playing out in this situation? I spoke to a couple of experts and everyone I spoke to was pretty adamant to say that letting a little boy paint his nails or sing Let It Go or cry is certainly not going against Black culture. Speaker 5 Black people show up in all sorts of different shapes, sizes, forms, gender, sexes, sexualities, and expressions. Blackness is full. Speaker 4 So that was Jen Jackson, and she is a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago, and she studies Blackness and gender. Speaker 5 And so I do not think it's a racial cultural phenomenon, but I do think that what his biological family is likely contending with is this structural contention of how will this young Man be situated when he grows up. Speaker 4 It's also important to remember that policing expressions of gender identity is pretty common in white families, Asian families, Latino families. So that particular parent getting upset does not represent black culture as a whole. Mark Anthony Neal, the other expert I spoke to, he's the chair of the African American Studies Department at Duke University. I wanted to emphasize the fact that there are different pressures around Black people and Black families to conform. So here's what Mark Anthony Neal had to say about Black masculinity. Gene Demby In many ways, you know, African American people, African American parents are very much invested in very normative gender standards because of the way that blackness has been treated As an abnormality. So one of the ways that black folks have historically fit in line with the larger society is to perform very conservative and rigid gender performances so that they're not looked at As strange and unusual within their context. When you attach that also to a larger history of the idea that white racism, white supremacy, has very specifically attempted to demasculate or emasculate black men and boys, you get These added pressures of this idea that black men and boys have to even counter these efforts to emasculate them with a hyper-performance of masculinity. Speaker 4 Some of the history he's talking about is that history of lynching and castration of black men that goes way back to the beginning of our country. Gene Demby So one of the things that I guess jumps out to me here, though, is like the idea that black men are hypermasculine seems, I just want to push back on it a little bit. The way that black people doing the same thing that white people are doing at any given time seems like salient in a different way, right? It's like, oh, look at them doing this thing. And of course, like if there are all these black men on TV who are athletes or whatever, whatever, there's a way in which that gets like magnified. Speaker 4 So I asked Mark about that. And one of the things he said is that that's true, that we see in our culture, black men are noticed more. The people who kind of rise to the top are treated like they're different in some way, like they're superhuman. He pointed to Superfly, that iconic 1972 film. B.A. Parker And he ain't just fly. He's super fly. Yeah, super fly. When it comes to women, they come to him. But it's still not enough. Speaker 4 James, for example, and how LeBron James, people don't talk about him as just like a man who works hard. They talk about him as like almost like a beast, like just like a different kind of physical specimen where his masculinity is kind of like put forward in a way that you don't see with white Athletes or white entertainers. Shereen Arisomaraji But what about this point that he made, which I mean, it definitely resonated with me, which is that African-American parents are invested in normative gender standards because of The way blackness has been treated as an abnormality. You want to be very rigidly whatever you're supposed to be in society so that people don't look at you like you're different or treat you like you're different or discriminated against You. You know, I think there's something to be said for that. Speaker 4 I think that kind of gets into a point he made about respectability politics and sort of like dressing in a way and performing sort of social roles in a way that's very conservative. So one of the examples he talked about was at Morehouse. Gene Demby There are, there have- Do you want me to explain the story comment here about Morehouse? Morehouse is this very old, very bougie, historically black college that was all men. Martin Luther King went there, a bunch of very famous black people went there. Anyway, sorry. That's it. Speaker 4 Right. So there is a history and kind of like a pedigree that goes with Morehouse. Morehouse man. Gene Demby Yep. Speaker 4 And I think respectability politics has often been kind of associated with Morehouse. But what he was saying is that historically speaking, black men at Morehouse get kind of policed in two directions. There's like rules against wearing sagging pants and doing the whole like low hat grills, which he described as sort of the what looks like the ultra masculine kind of expressions of Shereen Arisomaraji Gender. And to Jean's point, that's a racially coded expression of masculinity. Gene Demby In a different way than a sunata. Speaker 4 Right, exactly. But then on the other side of that, there's also people have gotten in trouble for wearing high heels or for kind of any sort of public expression of queerness. Gene Demby So there's a class thing here and a gender thing here. Shereen Arisomaraji Exactly. We haven't really answered the question. I mean, we've complicated things here. What should this foster parent do? Let his kid paint his nails knowing all this or say, no, we're not going to do that from here on out? Speaker 4 Well, I think kind of broadly, the advice for these parents is sort of the same advice we would give to any parents raising kids from a different kind of racial or cultural background. Which is that... More brown people? Right. You need to surround this kid with black people who can show different gender expressions. And then in addition to the people around you, it's also a matter of the media that you're consuming. So there's nothing wrong with having him paint his nails and watching Frozen, but Frozen is also a movie with very few black people in it. Shereen Arisomaraji That was the first thing I thought. Not because it's a girls movie. Right. Speaker 4 Exactly. So maybe it's, and this is, again, it's a hard thing to do because there aren't as many movies with black characters and a wide expression of black characters, but it's about finding ([Time 0:20:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/af643943-2e55-4456-817f-dd692aac3881)) - **Hypermasculinity Pressure Tied To Historical Racial Policing** - Black families may emphasize conventional gender norms partly as a response to historical racialized claims of emasculation. - Mark Anthony Neal links hypermasculinity pressure to a history of racism that policed Black masculinity. Transcript: Speaker 4 It's also important to remember that policing expressions of gender identity is pretty common in white families, Asian families, Latino families. So that particular parent getting upset does not represent black culture as a whole. Mark Anthony Neal, the other expert I spoke to, he's the chair of the African American Studies Department at Duke University. I wanted to emphasize the fact that there are different pressures around Black people and Black families to conform. So here's what Mark Anthony Neal had to say about Black masculinity. Gene Demby In many ways, you know, African American people, African American parents are very much invested in very normative gender standards because of the way that blackness has been treated As an abnormality. So one of the ways that black folks have historically fit in line with the larger society is to perform very conservative and rigid gender performances so that they're not looked at As strange and unusual within their context. When you attach that also to a larger history of the idea that white racism, white supremacy, has very specifically attempted to demasculate or emasculate black men and boys, you get These added pressures of this idea that black men and boys have to even counter these efforts to emasculate them with a hyper-performance of masculinity. Speaker 4 Some of the history he's talking about is that history of lynching and castration of black men that goes way back to the beginning of our country. Gene Demby So one of the things that I guess jumps out to me here, though, is like the idea that black men are hypermasculine seems, I just want to push back on it a little bit. The way that black people doing the same thing that white people are doing at any given time seems like salient in a different way, right? It's like, oh, look at them doing this thing. And of course, like if there are all these black men on TV who are athletes or whatever, whatever, there's a way in which that gets like magnified. Speaker 4 So I asked Mark about that. And one of the things he said is that that's true, that we see in our culture, black men are noticed more. The people who kind of rise to the top are treated like they're different in some way, like they're superhuman. He pointed to Superfly, that iconic 1972 film. B.A. Parker And he ain't just fly. He's super fly. Yeah, super fly. When it comes to women, they come to him. But it's still not enough. Speaker 4 James, for example, and how LeBron James, people don't talk about him as just like a man who works hard. They talk about him as like almost like a beast, like just like a different kind of physical specimen where his masculinity is kind of like put forward in a way that you don't see with white Athletes or white entertainers. Shereen Arisomaraji But what about this point that he made, which I mean, it definitely resonated with me, which is that African-American parents are invested in normative gender standards because of The way blackness has been treated as an abnormality. You want to be very rigidly whatever you're supposed to be in society so that people don't look at you like you're different or treat you like you're different or discriminated against You. You know, I think there's something to be said for that. Speaker 4 I think that kind of gets into a point he made about respectability politics and sort of like dressing in a way and performing sort of social roles in a way that's very conservative. So one of the examples he talked about was at Morehouse. Gene Demby There are, there have- Do you want me to explain the story comment here about Morehouse? Morehouse is this very old, very bougie, historically black college that was all men. Martin Luther King went there, a bunch of very famous black people went there. Anyway, sorry. That's it. Speaker 4 Right. So there is a history and kind of like a pedigree that goes with Morehouse. Morehouse man. Gene Demby Yep. Speaker 4 And I think respectability politics has often been kind of associated with Morehouse. But what he was saying is that historically speaking, black men at Morehouse get kind of policed in two directions. There's like rules against wearing sagging pants and doing the whole like low hat grills, which he described as sort of the what looks like the ultra masculine kind of expressions of Shereen Arisomaraji Gender. And to Jean's point, that's a racially coded expression of masculinity. Gene Demby In a different way than a sunata. Speaker 4 Right, exactly. But then on the other side of that, there's also people have gotten in trouble for wearing high heels or for kind of any sort of public expression of queerness. Gene Demby So there's a class thing here and a gender thing here. ([Time 0:21:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d807f383-c76a-4fc3-a36c-8a9c14d9eece)) - **Use Home Language Regularly And Create Peer Contexts** - Speak the heritage language consistently in-home and create social contexts where the child can use it with peers. - Juliana Melzi recommends playgroups, media like music, and using Spanish in public one-on-one to avoid receptive-only bilingualism. Transcript: Speaker 3 Here we go. Shereen Arisomaraji It's from Jeanette. My husband and I are trying to raise our daughter in a bilingual environment. I speak primarily Spanish to her while we're in the home, which my husband supports and encourages. B.A. Parker However, when we are around people who don't understand Spanish, my husband thinks it's not polite to speak in a language which they don't understand. My worry is that if our child only hears Spanish in the home, she may think it's something to be ashamed about. She might think it's not as good as English. Shereen Arisomaraji How can we encourage her language development and preserve her heritage while also balancing social norms? Big question. Good question. First thing that I was curious about was this idea of raising a child in a bilingual environment. What does that mean to you? Speaker 3 For me, it means that you are supporting the development of both languages so that ultimately the child will be able to communicate and function in two languages. But I think you're also tapping a little bit on the connection between language and culture. So raising a child in a bilingual environment also means developing their biculturalism. Shereen Arisomaraji And how do you do that in a country where the dominant language is English? Yes. Speaker 3 And I think also we have to take a broader perspective because it's not only that the main language is English, but English is a very cool language worldwide. And so it has higher than Spanish, and children are very attuned to that. When children see that certain languages have a lower status, they have less motivation to learn that language and to continue using that language. And when does that happen? When they go to school? I would venture to say that very early on. A true anecdote, my daughter, she started school, and we are raising our daughter bilingually as well, when she started kindergarten, she went through a phase of not wanting to use Spanish when we got into the elevator and there were other people there who she guessed did not speak Spanish. And she was five. So how did you push back on that with your own daughter? So I continued speaking Spanish. And it so happened that around that time, she started her fascination with Shakira was supported by the home environment. I started playing a lot Shakira. She resonated with Shakira a lot, and I encouraged that, and so she outgrew it. Oh, that's fantastic. Shereen Arisomaraji So Shakira actually made Spanish cool for her and gave it that cool factor that you were talking about. Yes. So to answer this woman's question, she says here that her husband thinks it's not polite to speak in Spanish out in public when there are people around who don't understand Spanish. How would you respond to her husband? Speaker 3 I think that he's being socially aware, and I support that. I will tell you what I do, and I think that it works for us. So if we are outside in the street walking, we speak Spanish to our daughter only. If we go into a space where we are having a group gathering and there are people there that speak only English, let's imagine, and I want to say something to my daughter for her to do. So bring me the plate that's on the table. I would say that in Spanish. But if I want to communicate with a larger group of people, then I would use the common language. And that common language is English in that particular context. If you have been raising your child to identify you with a language, the moment that you start speaking in that other language, which is English, the child won't have the same need to Communicate with you in the home language. And so then, eventually, that child will turn to what we call a receptive bilingual. She will understand the language, but she won't use it. That's me. Shereen Arisomaraji That's how I was raised. Speaker 3 It's very common. It's very common. The research actually shows that around preschool, what is most predictive of children's bilingual abilities is going to be how much they use that language. So creating opportunities for the child to be able to use that home language with peers, building playgroups is critical. Shereen Arisomaraji So it's not just about speaking to your child in the home or even speaking to your child one-on in public. It's about also encouraging your child to speak to other people that maybe they're not related to in the quote-unquote home language. Speaker 3 Language is contextual, right? So certain vocabulary words are going to appear in certain contexts more than others. So in order for the child to develop linguistic skills, strong, well-developed linguistic skills, they need to be able to see the language in diverse contexts. Only speaking the language in the home, it's good, and I applaud that, but it's not going to be sufficient. Shereen Arisomaraji And what does it mean to be truly bilingual? Speaker 3 That's the $1 million question. I think that I can tell you what bilingual is not. Okay, yes. Tell me that. Yes. So bilingual is not two monolinguals put together, right? I think that when we talk about bilingual children, we have this idealized idea that you're going to be able to function exactly the same in both languages. And that doesn't exist. Okay. I mean, not really. Well, that makes me feel better. We have this idealized picture of what a bilingual is, and I think we try to meet that ideal, and it doesn't exist. If you're functional in two languages, you're bilingual. Big thanks to Juliana ([Time 0:28:39](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cec66fff-c15e-40e0-9d17-91bb01caf4d9)) - **Bilingualism Means Functional Not Symmetrical Fluency** - True bilingualism is functional rather than identical fluency across both languages. - Juliana Melzi reframes bilingualism: being functional in two languages counts, not mirroring two monolinguals. Transcript: Shereen Arisomaraji And what does it mean to be truly bilingual? Speaker 3 That's the $1 million question. I think that I can tell you what bilingual is not. Okay, yes. Tell me that. Yes. So bilingual is not two monolinguals put together, right? I think that when we talk about bilingual children, we have this idealized idea that you're going to be able to function exactly the same in both languages. And that doesn't exist. Okay. I mean, not really. Well, that makes me feel better. We have this idealized picture of what a bilingual is, and I think we try to meet that ideal, and it doesn't exist. If you're functional in two languages, you're bilingual. ([Time 0:34:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/54dd3571-68f2-44e3-8029-3fd36d0237c5))