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

]]> http://multiracialsky.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/talking-about-race/feed/ multiracialsky http://multiracialsky.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/homeschool-mayjune-2008/ http://multiracialsky.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/homeschool-mayjune-2008/#comments Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:16:20 +0000 multiracialsky http://multiracialsky.wordpress.com/?p=202

Clearly, this was a big travel segment of our ’school’ year. There are also fewer notations of things we talked about (because my record-keeping was sporadic). By the time I filled in the kids’ activities–sometimes weeks later–I was relying heavily on the activities noted on our family calendar and the ‘photo documentation’ of our downloaded digital camera files. Those conversations, concepts explained, and words defined–they’re still happening, but I have to note them almost daily to remember. My head is full these days…

• Watch high school girls’ lacrosse games
• Play with friends
• Asian Festival at the college, including Taiko drumming, Writing in Chinese (Jaja), listening to stories, and baseball with college students (Rico)
• Play at the playground: at least four different playgrounds
• Biking: two playgrounds, one park, around Skytop Lake (Rico), ocean boardwalk, gravel road, and grandparents’ paved driveway
• Define ‘Anniversary’
• Visit the Library: in two states
• Make books: write story/words and draw pictures
• Help Daddy rototill the garden
• Fill up new sandbox
• Attend birthday parties
• Talk about Border Collies and other working dogs
• Plant beans in the garden
• Read out loud
• Cut paper dominoes out of Ladybug magazine and play game
• Jump on a trampoline
• One-week trip to Florida
• Two half-days in Washington, D.C., including riding on the mall carousel, the Air and Space Museum, and the Washington memorial
• Fly a kite
• Swim: in five pools, two lakes, and the ocean
• Paddle ball on the beach
• Skim-boarding
• Visit the Tampa Sciencenter and the local Sciencenter
• Play football in the ocean (Rico)
• Shop for food and deliver it to local food shelf
• Visit art museum; exhibits include masks of Sri Lanka and the art of W. David Powell
• Finish new ‘K’ general skills workbook: 350 pages (Jaja)
• Start new ‘Grade 1′ math workbook (Jaja)
• Work on general skills workbook and ‘K’ math workbook (Rico)
• Hike to the top of a mountain with Dad: more than five miles, with an elevation gain of 1,600 feet
• Play catch and baseball
• Slip ‘n’ Slide
• Play with playdough
• Run in half-mile kids’ race
• Jump off pool diving board and swim to side unassisted
• Puzzles and Legos
• Five-day visit at grandparents’ house
• Help cook meals, including cutting vegetables and fruit
• Scooter
• Walk and train grandparents’ new puppy
• Garden and weed
• Learn how to use a pocket knife
• Measure, cut, and twine string on sticks to support growing bean plants
• Visit Mystic Aquarium, including Sea Lion show, bird exhibit, feed parakeets, and watch three Beluga whales being trained
• Go to Children’s Cheering Carpet Project
• Pick strawberries: domestic and wild
• Catch crabs
• Play guitar
• Visit friend’s farm, including cows, baby chickens and turkeys, grown chickens, and three acres of vegetables and flowers
• Learn how to use a hanging trapeze: put feet over bar and pull self to sitting (Jaja)
• Four-day trip to the Poconos to celebrate great-grandma’s ninetieth birthday
• Play with cousins
• Golf: mini-golf and putting green
• Lawn bowling
• Ping-pong
• Rock climbing: reach the top of a 40-foot wall (Jaja)
• Play kickball
• Dress up and pretend

Photo: Jaja’s playdough pig

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:

• Glossary of Defining Race and Ethnicity
• Creating a Multiracial Home Environment
• Multiracial Identity: for Families and Individuals
• Resources for Transracially Adoptive parents
• and the Sky Store

Yesterday I had a first: I listened to my oldest daughter comfortably and clearly explain her families and her heritage, under a barrage of questions that had me uncomfortable. She was across a quiet swimming pool, so I could see (and hear) most of the conversation, but I was not part of it. It began with an acquaintance about her age (6) asking, “So, are you two related or something?” indicating Jaja and Gretel.

“We’re sisters,” Jaja replied. Without even asking Jaja’s name (or Gretel’s), this girl continued. She said that my girls couldn’t be sisters because they aren’t the same color. “We are sisters!” Jaja answered cheerfully. This girl then asked if Jaja was adopted. Jaja said yes, and then I missed a few sentences of their conversation.

The next I heard was Jaja saying proudly, “I’m biracial. One of my birthparents is Black and one is White.”

And then this girl says (more than once, so I know I wasn’t hearing things), “You’re not biracial. If one of your parents is Black, you’re Black.”

“I’m Black and White,” Jaja says, apparently unfazed (at this point, I was getting a little hot under the collar–who does this kid think she is, questioning my daughter like this?)

Then the girl says, “Well, if you’re adopted that means you’re not biracial.” What!?

“Well, I am,” Jaja kept saying, standing her ground without moving an inch. She never said ‘you’re wrong’. Instead, she just kept repeating her own truths. They played together in the pool for a while, and later I heard this girl start up with the color/race/adoption questions again.

At dinner last night, we were talking with all our kids about their favorite parts of the day, and Jaja brought up this girl. “She wanted to talk about skin color a lot,” Jaja said with a sigh.

“Yeah, like brown, tan, mixed,” Gretel chimed in.

“But I liked swimming with her,” Jaja said. She talked a bit more about their initial conversation, and all the questions the girl had asked her.

“You know,” I began, “if someone outside our family asks you a question–about anything–you don’t have to answer it.”

“I know.” Jaja said confidently. “Sometimes it’s good to answer people’s questions, though.”

“Sometimes it is,” I confirmed. “But the questions this girl was asking you were about your personal information. You do not have to share your private information with anyone. You can, if you want to. That is your choice.”

“I know,” Jaja said again.

“If someone asks you a question, you don’t have to tell them the answer–even if you know it. You can say, ‘That’s none of your business’ or ‘I don’t want to talk about that’ or ‘My mom says I don’t have to talk about that if I don’t want to’. If they keep asking you, you can just leave.” I wanted to give her specific things she could say and do.

Jaja nodded. I turned to Rico, “Same goes for you. You don’t have to answer any questions you don’t want to,” I started in.

Rico interrupted me, “I heard everything you said to Jaja. And that’s the same for me, right?”

“It’s the same for you.”

For several hours I was internally focused on my initial shock and annoyance at this child (and her parents). Where did a six year old learn that families/siblings must match? Why is adoption the only connection she can see between brown-skinned Jaja and her tan-skinned sister? And the biggies: Where did this little kid learn that if you have one Black parent and one White parent then you must be Black? And where does she get off telling my child that her racial self-identity is incorrect?

Hours later, after all the kids were in bed, I began to feel really impressed with Jaja. My sometimes shy little girl aswered this litany of invasive questions with confidence and clarity. She knew her facts and did not seem a bit rattled by this other child’s insistence that Jaja was wrong. Jaja knew she was right: she’s biracial; she’s both Black and White; she was adopted, and Gretel is her sister.

My daughter had the facts and the words and the answers at hand when she needed them. And she was so mature in the way she handled the whole situation–she made me proud.

Listening to the Bob Marley box set last night (disc 3), my partner called my attention to the lyrics of the song War. The lyrics are from a speech given by Haile Selassie I, the Ethiopian Emperor from 1930-1974. Selassie gave this speech in 1963 before the United Nations General Assembly:

Until the philosophy
which hold one race superior
and another inferior
is finally and permanently
discredited and abandoned–
Everywhere is war

While flipping through the liner notes book, looking for the lyrics, I stopped at a photo of Bob Marley I have seen many times before. “Bob Marley’s mixed!” I said to my partner. He shrugged; he’s been a lifelong Marley fan, but he didn’t know. I came to the computer–and low and behold, I was right.

Bob Marley is biracial. His mother was Black Jamaican and his father was White Jamaican. Maybe everybody else knows that the most famous Rastafarian and Reggae musician is multiracial–but I didn’t.

Jaja was looking at liner note photos last night. I loved telling her, “That’s Bob Marley. He’s biracial, like you. His mom was Black and his dad was White.” She nodded, smiled, looked and listened more closely.