Parenting for Racial Justice

WE ARE A baseball family, with our two boys playing on many teams over the years with multiracial teammates, coaches, and leadership in the organizations shaping those programs. I have long been a Little League baseball coach, and my wife, Joy, has been commissioner at every level too.

In baseball, talent and teamwork are the metrics and measuring sticks, not the race of one’s teammates. For both of my boys, their teammates are their closest friends.

Being a Little League coach (for 11 years and 22 seasons!) has given me a place to reflect on our nation’s racial issues. Playing baseball brings you closer together. My son Luke often says his high school teammates are the best friends he’s ever had, and at every level of Little League, my players always testify in our final team meeting of the season how they have become such close friends. Being teammates really does help overcome racial bias and prejudice, because it is the issue of proximity that finally helps human beings understand one another and learn empathy. On Little League teams we are all cheering for one another, looking out for one another, picking one another up when we fall down or make a mistake, and learning to be positive as we work together for our common goals.

One of the best things to watch over the course of a season is how, across racial lines, the parents of players become friends as well. It is especially interesting to see how the conversation topics develop over time, moving from “just baseball” to school and future, to work and family, to sharing of life experiences, and even to national events, which sometimes includes race. What becomes clear is that we all care more about our children and their future than anything else, and beginning to talk about our kids’ futures together can be a very powerful moment.

EVERY BLACK PLAYER I ever coached has had what’s called “the talk” with his or her dad or mom—a conversation on how to behave and not behave in the presence of a police officer. It’s a talk designed to protect young black men and women from their local law enforcement officials. All black players have had that talk with their parents, whether their families are low-income or D.C. elite.

When I point out that none of my white players have had that talk, and that few of their parents even know about it, the faces of white parents around the room often look uncomfortable. Does it bother us as white parents that black parents have that talk with their kids when we don’t? Have they talked to the black parents of their children’s teammates about it? It’s a great opportunity for white parents to hear from black parents about their hopes and fears for their children’s lives. White parents can ask, “How did you feel when you had to tell your son he couldn’t trust the law enforcement officials who are supposed to protect him?” White parents can ask themselves, “How would I feel if I had to have that ‘talk’ with my children?”

Joy and I recently have been visiting potential colleges with our son, and we have found that such visits can also be a revealing experience about parenting for racial justice. Very few of the schools we visited easily volunteered information on their racial diversity. We had to ask. The few that actively told prospective students and their parents about the progress they were making on racial, cultural, and economic diversity in their student bodies were wonderful exceptions and quickly won our attention.

At many colleges, people instead talked about how their students were “winners,” and it was apparent that success was defined in mostly monetary terms. Our own “student athlete” was committed to finding a top academic school, and it also mattered to him what the schools seemed to care most about. The schools that focused on the values being taught at their institutions—those that focused a lot on “service” and “social justice” (especially if they also had a great baseball program!)—won our hearts and minds and ultimately became the schools that most attracted our son.

Parenting for racial justice can make a great difference. What do we tell our children about race and racism? Who are our kids’ classmates and teammates? With whom do they have play dates and sleepovers? Who is always in and around our own houses? Who crosses the thresholds of our lives? All these are crucial aspects of how young worldviews are formed.

Speaking and advocating are critical and vocational commitments in our lives, but Joy and I have come to see that parenting for justice and peace may be among the most important things that we will ever do.