White Parents in an Age of Trump

ON THE MORNING of Nov. 9, 2016, I delivered a clumsy lecture to my then 8-year-old son about his responsibility as a white boy in Trump’s America: “If you see something, say something. If anyone tells another child she’s going to be deported, you must speak up. Tell your teacher.”

Jennifer Harvey created a guide for parents like me, who want to teach our kids to be anti-racist but aren’t always sure how: Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America . Ordained in the American Baptist Churches (U.S.A), Harvey is a professor at Drake University whose work focuses on racial justice and white anti-racism. She is also a contributor to The New York Times and Huffington Post and the author of Dear White Christians: For Those Still Longing for Racial Reconciliation.

Raising White Kids promotes moving away from a model of color-blindness, which shuts down any discussion of race, toward race-conscious parenting. Harvey draws on many experts. Psychologist Beverly Daniel Tatum describes systemic racism as “smog,” which affects all people. One study cited in the book found parents of color are 2 to 5 times more likely to discuss race with their children than white parents. Failure to teach white kids about America’s unspoken racial scripts leaves kids unprepared to counter racism.

Harvey bases much of her argument on psychologist Janet Helms’ taxonomy describing six stages of white identity. As early as preschool age, children notice differences in race. They engage in play and conversations related to skin color. To illustrate, Harvey shares her 5-year-old nephew’s account of choosing teams for dodgeball. Her nephew, who is black, explained how he and his classmates couldn’t have “whites v. blacks teams” any more after a teacher overheard them.

“When teachers chose not to explore the reasons not to play racially divided dodgeball,” Harvey writes, “these students were left more likely to succumb to tension-filled racial scripts as a result. These kids are going to square off as Black and white in some other way.” Instead of silence, which gives kids the impression race is taboo, Harvey suggests that adults acknowledge differences and engage kids in questioning how society values the white race above others.

Harvey shares experiences and conversations she has had with her young children as examples of race-conscious parenting. Among the most dramatic is her account of attending a protest with her 3- and 5-year-old daughters following the shooting of Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo. During the rally, her 5-year-old announced, “Black people aren’t safe!” followed by the observation, “But we’re white, so we’re safe! Right?” Harvey’s candor about the awkwardness of this moment and her struggle to find a suitable response make the scholarly information she imparts in her book very relatable.

The last chapter explores additional resources such as Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) groups and subscriptions to Safety Pin Box. In concluding her book, Harvey offers a warning: “Being white in a system of white racial hierarchy negatively impacts white people’s humanity and health every day, even as it harms and negatively impacts people of color every day. We cannot fully enable children who are white to be healthy until we have created a truly just world.”

Raising White Kids helped me reflect on my own parenting practices and offered guidance for how to proceed. I stand by the post-election speech I gave my son, but I now understand this talk needs to be one of many if we’re to build a racially just world.