Posts filed under 'Antiracism'

Talking About Race

Cross-posted from resources for Talking About Race at MultiracialSky.com.

The key to talking with your child—or anyone—about race is the same key to discussing any complex subject: openness. Start an open dialog with your child about race early in their life. Make it a comfortable subject of conversation—for you, and for your child.

WORDS: Find descriptive words you are comfortable using. Check out the MultiracialSky Glossary for expanded definitions of 60 race-related terms, including 30 heritage-affirming words used today to describe people with a variety of racial and ethnic heritages.

COLORS: Start with words describing color such as brown or tan, or the colors of foods. The Colors of Us [below] has wonderful descriptive color words.

IDENTIFIERS: Teach your children words they can use to identify themselves, and terms people with other heritages use to identify themselves. (Examples: multiracial, Amerasian, Latina.)

RACE AND ETHNICITY: Talk with your child about names for different racial and ethnic heritages. The descriptions and words you use may evolve and change over time, or as the socially predominant terms evolve. (Examples: African American, Black American, Native American, European American, Asian American, Mexican, White, Black, Cuban, Irish)

HUMAN RACE: When talking about race in scientific terms, the fact remains that there is only one human race. This is a fact and statement we should equip our children with. However, especially as parents, we must also recognize that the societal construct of different and distinct races affects everyone.

BOOKS FOR CHILDREN

The Colors of Us
Written and Illustrated by Karen Katz

The perfect book to begin the conversation with your child about skin color. Uses positive language to discuss the limitless variety of tones of the color brown.

Purchase from Amazon

Skin Again
Written by bell hooks, Illustrated by Chris Raschka

Poetic words accompanied by beautiful paintings. This book conveys a strong message that you cannot know who someone is simply by looking at them.

Purchase from Amazon

All the Colors We Are: The Story of How We Get Our Skin Color
Written by Katie Kissinger, Photographs by Wernher Krutein

Simply explained scientific history of where and how humans get their skin color. In English and Spanish. NOTE: Multiracial families are presented as atypical following these two sentences: “Usually people with light skin have children with light skin. People with dark skin usually have children with dark skin.”

Purchase from Amazon

All the Colors of the Earth
Written and Illustrated by Sheila Hamanaka

Flowing text paired with paintings of children of all skin tones. Multiracial children and interracial couples shown.

Purchase from Amazon

Shades of Black
Written by Sandra L. Pinkney, Photographs by Myles Pinkney

Photographs and positive language show the variety of skin color, eye color, and hair texture present in children with Black American heritage.

Purchase from Amazon

Amazing Grace
Written and Illustrated by Mary Hoffman

Clearly narrated story of an imaginative girl who overcomes classmates’ limitations of her because of her skin color and gender.

Purchase from Amazon

BOOK RESOURCES FOR ADULTS–For thinking and talking about race and racism

A People’s History of the United States
By Howard Zinn

The portion of American History missing from traditional textbooks. The U.S. history of women, African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants of all nationalities, the working class and the poor.

Purchase from Amazon

Everyday Acts Against Racism
Edited by Maureen Reddy

A collection of essays by parents (mostly mothers) raising children of color. Some of the authors are multiracial.

Purchase from Amazon

Some of My Best Friends
Edited by Emily Bernard

Deep, well-crafted essays about interracial friendships by 16 writers.

Purchase from Amazon

White Like Me
By Time Wise
White privilege and race in the United States–past and present–artfully explained and deconstructed by a White man from the South. This book is both life-changing and humorous.

Purchase from Amazon


Add comment July 24, 2008

More Resources for Multiracial Families

My resource website for multiracial families, MultiracialSky.com, has been updated and the long awaited additions have been made. Check out all the new features:

  • New issues of the zines My Sky & Symony Fire
  • Talking About Race now includes links to Race: The Power of an Illusion and The RACE Project of the American Anthropological Association
  • Updated illustrations in Hair and Skin Care for Children
  • And the completion of Finding and Creating Community, including
    • A list of major multiracial family groups
    • Section on education and children’s schooling, with online resources
    • Websites to assist families in exploring new communities

Don’t forget classic multiracial family favorites, such as:


Add comment June 19, 2008

On Privilege and Responsibility

This is a post in response to the Anti-Racist Parent column, Is Privilege Offensive?

Privilege is absolutely not offensive. Scary to talk or think about? Yes, it can be. For many of us who have to talk to our kids about the high level of privilege our family experiences, it involves telling them about people who are just like them/us who do not have some of the basics that our kids often take for granted: food, shelter, parents, clothes, band-aids, heat, diapers, and the more complicated stuff like a fair trial, a fair chance in college admissions, or equal opportunities to create a livable existence for themselves and their families. If some people are underprivileged, that makes the rest of us overprivileged.

We talk about privilege in our family, with our children, all the time, although we don’t always use that exact word. We talk about my and my partner’s beliefs about the equality of all people, and also about the resources, choices, and opportunities our family (and our kids) have that are unfairly available to only a select a group of people. It can be hard to talk with children about the lack of privilege others are experiencing daily, especially when it manifests as extreme poverty, but I believe we as parents must do it anyway.

Imagine this: Three people are in a 100 meter race. The first person is standing relaxed at the starting line, stretching and waiting for the race to begin. One minute before the race begins, the second person arrives (panting) at the starting line. As the starting shot is fired, the third person runs up–and the three racers are off. The first (waiting, relaxed) person wins the 100 meter race–but not by much. Now, does it change anything to know that the second person had to run 100 meters directly before this race, and the third person had to run 400 meters right before the race? Is the first person the fastest runner? Is the first person truly the winner? Is it a ‘fair race’ if we only take into account that final 100 meter distance that all three runners were required to participate in? This story (that I’ve read in different forms many places) illustrates how privilege works. If you imagine the race from each runner’s perspective, this story also shows how difficult it can be to see (and understand) the other runners’ viewpoints.

I do not want my kids to grow up thinking they are simply ‘lucky’ and other kids are ‘unlucky’. It’s definitely not that simple. There are individual and institutional daily choices being made (as they have been for hundreds of years) that consistently privilege certain groups of people above others. People are privileged based on race (both perceived and actual), skin tone, gender, sexuality, religion, income, education, marital status, and physical ability, to name some of the most common factors.

I believe those of us who find ourselves more privileged in this world do owe something to those who are less privileged. I often wonder what would happen if we each did all we could for those who–for whatever reasons–have less privilege today than we do. What does true activism look like? Is it enough to speak out against offensive jokes and comments, to be an anti-racist parent, and to purchase a cartful of groceries for the food-shelf once a month? Can I expect the world to change if I am not working towards that change myself? Can I expect someone else to step up and do something I myself am unwilling to do?

Note on those ‘Got Privilege?’ t-shirts: I first saw one worn by a new friend I met at the Loving Conference last year (and yeah, I still want one). My friend is White. The majority of people I have met who have been to the White Privilege Conference are White. (I originally thought it was a conference for White people.) So my frame of reference for the shirts is a bit different because I initially met and pictured White people wearing them. I think those t-shirts are great, by the way. They are for anyone–of any race–to wear, anyone who is aware of their own privilege(s). I see these shirts as similar in message to the ‘Don’t assume I’m White’ t-shirts, worn by both PoC and White persons alike. The point is not whether the person wearing the shirt is or is not White–the point is to get people thinking about their racial assumptions. And the ‘Got Privilege?’ shirt is to get people thinking about privilege, hopefully about their own.


3 comments June 10, 2008

First Blogiversary

One year ago today, I began My Sky ~ Multiracial Family Life with the post Kindergarten, documenting the beginning of our search for a school (a community, really) where our multiracial children could blossom. We are now nearing the end of our first year of homeschooling, and preparing to being our second.

I began writing this blog with the idea it would have laser beam focus on one corner of my (and my family’s) life: living in the United States as a member of a multiracial family, and being a multiracial person raising four very different multiracial children. In the beginning the writing came easily: I had a lot to say specific to these issues that I had been storing up for quite a while. After a few months had passed, I found my prolific output waning. I’d start posts and stop them, usually for the same reason–mission creep. I’d start writing about transracial adoption but it would turn into a post about open adoption, birthparent rights, or adoption ethics (which can each be related to transracial adoption, but are also connected to all adoptions). I’d start writing about one of my White-appearing multiracial children and it would turn into a post on tribal rights or the diversity of Native American tribal cultures and the way in which we have clumped them together into one falsely-monolithic group (the Cherokee and the Shawnee are about as culturally alike as the French and the Germans). I’d start to write about racial passing and I’d censor myself because I wasn’t ready to talk about all the other ways I was also passing.

During the unplanned blog break I took over the past month, I thought a lot about the blogs I love to read, the ones I check nearly daily. The narrative blogs that draw me in are mostly focused on an issue or two of importance to me (multiracial families, multiracial people, antiracism, transracial adoption, adoption as a first choice, adoption from foster care, adoption reform) but there are also other pieces of the blogger’s life that I connect with (homeschooling, multiple young children, gardening, writer-mom) and also places where our lives are very different (religion, where we live, mom working-outside-the-home). It means a lot to me to read about Los Angelista’s family member who committed suicide, to know that Baggage has her own complicated personal history and is still a successful mom and foster mom. I know these bloggers only through the stories they chose to share with me (and you) online, but I am interested in what they’re reading, what they’re eating, and the funny things their kids said at dinner last night.

So, I am taking this blogiversary opportunity to tweak my blog. All the essays and reflections on multiracial family life will continue (I don’t know that I could stop thinking and writing about this if I wanted to), as well as the bi-monthly multicultural homeschooling updates (I know, I’m overdue), and periodic Life Links.  I will also be folding in Sky Family Adventures, stories and kid quotes that were temporarily housed in a separate blog. I plan to write more often, including what I’m reading (White Like Me, by Time Wise), what we’re eating (just joined up with a local CSA again), what we’re watching (my kids have been loudly throwing their bodies around since I showed them the dance portions of How She Move), and more about race, adoption, school, family expansion, and other plans for the upcoming years. I haven’t forgotten about the adoption series or the long overdue post on cultural appropriation. I’m just taking it as it comes, which today–since I have the house to myself for a rare few quiet hours–completed thoughts and writing are coming fast and clear. Tomorrow, however, may be a different story.

Peace, blessings, and looking forward to another year.


3 comments May 10, 2008

A meme of sorts

I’ve been tagged twice in the last month, and I haven’t responded (felt kind of like a chain letter, and a lot of person-related questions). Instead, I’ve tweaked the requested lists and added a few more relevant (changed favorite TV shows to favorite books, since we don’t have a TV) items of my own. WARNING: There are a lot of links . . . Here goes:

What I Am Most Passionate About (these days):

    Musical Artists I Could (and sometimes do) Listen To All Day:

    New Music I’m Listening To (on repeat):

    Old Favorite Books:

    New Favorite Books:

    Multiracial Family Blogs I Visit (just about) Everyday:

    Other Daily Stops:

    Blogs I visit once a week (or so): 


    Add comment February 8, 2008

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