# data[].attributes.headline
Websites and Articles for Parents to Learn & Teach About Racial Acceptance To Their Young Children 

# data[].attributes.subject
Websites and Articles for Parents to Learn & Teach About Racial Acceptance To Their Young Children 

# data[].attributes.body
Parents Canada Website

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It begins early. When her daughter was in Junior Kindergarten, Stoney Creek, Ont., mom Christabel Pinto says she would come home from school every day in tears. The kids were calling her names; they wouldn't play with her because, "brown people get diseases."

"I'd go into the basement and cry," says Christabel, an accompanist and music director. The teacher's response was almost worse. "She told the other kids 'she's just different from them,'" says Christabel, who withdrew her daughter from the school.

At this point you might be asking, what year was this - 1968? 1975? No. This was in 2010. Christabel's other children Kambria, 10, and Krispin, 8, still regularly sit alone at lunch.

Kiera Silverglen, 14, of Hamilton, says she's grown used to racist comments such as "How was the slave ship?" "How was it when you were a maid?" She copes by writing poetry and short stories (she received first place for poetry in this year's Hamilton Public Library's Power of the Pen - a prestigious writing contest).

Name-calling is bad enough. Far more insidious and harmful are the negative perceptions and derogatory stereotypes too often associated with people of colour.

"I was almost arrested in Walmart for looking at a DVD," Kiera says. A salesperson came up to her and asked, "Were you going to steal that?" She had to call for her mom (who is white) to get the manager.

Kiera's adoptive mom, Catherine Silverglen, is a teacher and anti-racism educator. Catherine shares an example of the sort of attitude her family frequently gets from teachers: "We met with the teacher because Kiera was having some challenges in a particular subject," she says. "The teacher made a joke that went (with accent), 'She is just a little bit slow. I don't want to use the word lazy but I was in Jamaica once mon, and they are all so laid back, maybe it's cultural.'" (Kiera was adopted from Chicago).

To combat negative perceptions in her classroom, Catherine introduces positive images of non-white cultural groups. "I'll talk about the incredible histories and contributions of the African continent; Egypt, Benin, 'the city of Gold.' Why don't kids learn any of this?" Too often, we only hear about these cultures in a piteous light - which is an unfair and biased view.

"I think as white people, we really need to challenge ourselves to get to know non-white people," says Catherine. She suggests also reading a few books by authors from different cultures about their own experiences. Books like The Help and To Kill a Mockingbird are about racism in the U.S. south, for example, but they are about how a white person stood up for a black person. They shouldn't be the only books on our reading list.

According to Statistics Canada data from 2012 (released in 2014), black populations continued to be the most commonly targeted group for police reported hate crimes motivated by race or ethnicity in 2012, accounting for 42 percent of racial hate crimes. Hate crimes are criminal acts motivated by hate. They can be either violent or non-violent in nature, and affect not only the individual victim but also the groups targeted. Hate crimes also occur in Arab, Asian, Jewish and Aboriginal populations.

By almost every indicator, Canada's aboriginal population is worse off than African-Americans in the U.S., according to figures compiled in a recent Maclean's magazine article. After the summer of 2014 - which included riots in Missouri and New York because two unarmed black men were killed by police - this is a pretty grim comparison.

From those riots, emerged the movement #BlackLivesMatter. Canadians, too, have embraced the message (and expanded it to #BlackBrownandRedLivesMatter). Everywhere in the home, in classrooms, in communities across the country, the need for anti-racism education is urgent.

Talk, discuss, converse

It's never too early to start educating children on how to respond to incidents of racism.

"There are subtleties that kids are amazing at picking up on. If left unexamined, they'll internalize the wrong message," says Anita Bromberg, CEO of Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF-fcrr.ca) in Toronto. "It will come out, much to the shock of parents and teachers."

Anita notes that all animals, including humans (and even infants) have learned to make distinctions about people and places because it was a matter of survival. "You needed to know as a baby that it was safe to pat a dog, but not safe to hug a bear." She says that while it is not wrong to recognize differences between people - it's what you do with it.

"Ignoring it, or reprimanding it can be the wrong approach. The best thing parents can do is talk openly to their kids," says Anita.

Anita's organization focuses on building harmonious relations within Canadian values of democracy and multiculturalism. 'Our Canada' is their most recent initiative to engage communities across the country on conversations about inclusion and diversity. "When we will achieve a truly equal society is when we value each person for who they are. That's what inclusion is all about. And we are certainly not there," Anita says.

Rachel Edge and Michael Abraham are youth workers at New Generation Youth Centre (NGEN) in Hamilton. They also use discussion as a key tool in addressing racism.

"Dialogue is one of our most effective ways to engage young people, helping them deconstruct language, or deconstruct lived experiences they are going through, and tying that into potential privilege and power," says Rachel. "It's normal to come in the lounge to see a white girl from the west end, and an Arab youth from the core getting really heated but having a staff member facilitate the conversation, and I think that is where a lot of learning and unlearning can take place."

What you can do at school

Consider especially the amount of time youth spend in schools. "That's where the majority of students' experiences and identities are shaped," says Michael.

Ideally, social justice awareness should be integrated into all levels of education. "Parents have an important role to play. They could put pressure on the school board with a proposal on how education could be more realistic about racism," Michael says. Christabel's situation is a perfect case in point: teachers need to be trained how to handle racism with meaningful words and actions, not "she's just different."

Rachel and Michael propose that there is a difference in celebrating diversity by honouring and valuing a faith or culture, versus simply appropriating holidays. If the latter is occurring in schools, we need to be aware that there is a high risk for misrepresentation, miscommunication and therefore indirect racism.

"Sometimes, to show honour and respect means to acknowledge that maybe I am not the best person to be teaching a particular topic," Rachel says. So parents can suggest that community members from diverse cultures and places be invited into the classroom to share their knowledge, or set up other events to give kids context and a friendly image of other cultural groups.

What teachers can do

Getting information from one cultural group doesn't allow for different perspectives. Rachel suggests encouraging your child's school to have many different voices, not just a white perspective, if that is the dominant culture at the school. "Kids usually respect and enjoy guest speakers who share new information from a different perspective," Rachel says.

A social worker in training, Michael believes that Indigenous studies provides a starting point to talk about racism since we live in Canada. What does it mean to be residents on land that was taken, what is that history and how did we get to here?

"It makes it very tangible and presents real lived experiences to help students comprehend the issues," Michael says. "When you acknowledge colonialism, you can also bring up neo-colonialism which is happening right now; and how we are still benefiting today from that past," Michael adds.

Although we are making strides policy-wise with anti-racism training and numerous anti-racism toolkits are available for educators, it is still up to individual teachers whether or not they want to implement racism awareness in the classroom.

Nassim Elbardouh is a Vancouver-based schoolteacher. She has taught Grades 3 through 10 and is currently teaching at a school where most of the kids are First Nations. They are all learning their own languages like Cree and Haida"

"What I like to do in a classroom is to address anti-racism education through an intersectional framework," Nassim says. In contrast to a 'multi-cultural' framework where schools celebrate a few times a year (for example, Black History month), or have curriculum add-ons where diversity is a 'one off,' Nassim will ask the students, "What are the power structures that exist in our classroom?" She gets kids to think about what power and privileges they have.

Guiding students, and exposing them to the different realities of how privilege operates and is rarely challenged helps them to better understand how systems of oppression function to benefit some, while disadvantaging others.

"If we want to build more resilient communities, ultimately, we need to be talking about white privilege," Nassim says.

Teaching accountability

Nassim notes that while there is a lot of talk about bullying, she's not a fan of the term. "I think it masks homophobia, sexism, ableism, classism and racism," Nassim says. "As long as we don't name racism for what it is, we are going to keep experiencing it."

Nassim tries shifting the culture in the classroom to one of collective accountability, implicating the entire group instead of one person. For example, changing "Hey did I just hear you saying this to Z?" to "Hey, is everybody comfortable with the way Z was just treated?"

"Wouldn't it be cool if at a very early age it becomes a really valued tool to be someone who stands up for everyone and to not just witness when oppression happens?" she asks. "Ultimately it is a way of addressing racism, how it exists in our society, and what are you going to do when you leave school so as not to contribute to it."

What you can do at home

There are many ways to expose children to diverse cultures. Gary Pieters of Urban Alliance (urbanalliance.ca) suggests attending cultural events, riding on public transit, talking to people, watching multi-cultural shows on TV, picking up papers that are in a different language to English.

"Check out the school library. Does it have a good selection of books featuring children of different colours and backgrounds?" Gary asks.

Selecting children's books where the main characters just happen to be Muslim, indigenous or black and where that is not the main story is a great way to normalize people of colour.

"It is important that children are able to make meaning of their own lives through the material we expose them to and that those materials be reflective of the country's diversity, but also the global diversity that they are living in," says Gary. "We cannot insulate them from reality."

Nor should we. Take popular music. Gary points out it rarely ever looks like the mainstream: "Many kids listen to the type of music that is not what their parents listen to."

Grownups have much to learn from children, because they have something to offer, says Gary. "Each of us has something to learn from each other but also something to share and to give to each other."

Want to learn more about how to end systemic racism?

The Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre (ACLRC.com) has developed Calgary Anti Racism Education (CARED), a resource that offers people "support in developing a critical understanding of the systemic nature of racism, its historical foundations, and current impact, particularly in terms of the formal education system."Linda McKay-Panos, Executive Director at ACLRC, says "We should be educating all Canadians about Canada's history, good and bad, with respect to racism and discrimination. We need to include education about systemic and institutionalized racism for educators, students and the public. Parents and educators need to address their own biases (which we all have). We have to learn continuously as this is an ongoing process and should, more than anything, set an example for our children through our continued learning."
Hamilton, Ont. writer Beatrice Ekwa Ekoko is a bi-racial mother of mixed-race teens. She is a frequent contributor to ParentsCanada. Originally published in ParentsCanada magazine, April 2015.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to teach racial acceptance - ParentsCanada

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It begins early. When her daughter was in Junior Kindergarten, Stoney Creek, Ont., mom Christabel Pinto says she would come home from school every day in tears. The kids were calling her names ; they wouldn't play with her because, "brown people get diseases."

# data[].attributes.headline
How White Parents Can Talk to Their Kids About Race 

# data[].attributes.subject
How White Parents Can Talk to Their Kids About Race 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
subscribe to Life Kit podcast

subscribe to Life Kit podcast

Most people have heard about "the talk" - the conversation many African American parents have with their kids about how to avoid altercations with police or what to do and say if they're stopped.

The recent unrest sparked by anger over police brutality against African Americans has parents who aren't black thinking more about how they talk to their kids about race.

Michel Martin, weekend host of All Things Considered, spoke with Jennifer Harvey, author of Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Michel Martin: You wrote a piece for CNN about how not to raise racist kids. You said most white parents have come up in families in which white silence was a pervasive norm in our socialization. These same parents are now passing such silence on to their kids. Could you talk a bit more about that? What is the consequence of that silence?
Jennifer Harvey: Many white Americans were raised in families that thought that they were teaching equality. The way that they did that was to just say, "Well, we're all equal" and not say anything more explicit about what it means when you believe everyone should be equal.

Many members of our society do not experience equality. And so what happens is that in the racist culture we live in - Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum talks about it as "smog" - our kids, our youth, we adults just breathe it in. So we end up showing up in racist ways, even when we come from families where equality was the presumed value.

It breeds a lack of capacity among white people to engage in conversations about race and to respond when racism is happening. If I hear racism out on the street or from a co-worker, should I challenge it? What should I say about it? If my African American colleagues or friends see me be silent because I don't know what to do, I become untrustworthy.
With videos like the one of George Floyd's death, do you wait for your child to come to you? Do you show it to the child and say, "This is something I need to talk about with you?"
My daughter is told, "Police are safe - go find one if you're in trouble," but her African American cousin is learning complicated messages about the police from his parents. Those differing messages mean they can be great friends for a while. But eventually, the depth of their friendship will erode because my white child will not be able to identify with her African American cousin or her African American friends.

White Americans have to teach our kids how to identify with that experience and how to be good friends to black and brown youth as they grow up. That requires us teaching them about racism. And it requires us modeling anti-racism, which is something a lot of white Americans really struggle with.

White families should not wait to talk about racism with children, because segregation is so deep that if we just wait, it will never come up. I never show my children videos of black people being killed by police, and I try not to watch those videos myself. But I do talk about the videos with them.
How are you discussing the unrest that's being shown in the media?
I started doing that work with my own children before they even had words. I would make sure we were in spaces where we were opposing police brutality, attending vigils and organizing. I knew they wouldn't exactly understand what was going on. One time after a rally, my 5-year-old said, "Black people are not safe." And I said, "Yes, that's true." And then she said, "But we're white, so we are safe." And I said, "Yeah, that's true too."

Then I said to her, "The reason we went to this rally is because we're trying to tell the government that everybody deserves to be safe." So now, six years later, she's already got a deep understanding of this. And so we can talk about what happened to George Floyd. We're much further along the conversation.

I discussed that with my children by talking with them about how they might respond when they have been harmed or an injustice or an unfairness has happened to them and they aren't heard. Because we've been having these conversations, my kids understand that peaceful protest has not yielded justice for black and brown people in this country.
For people who say, "You know what - this stuff just gives me a headache. I don't want to be bothered. This isn't my problem. Why do I have to think about this? I have problems of my own," what do you say?
We're wrestling with it as a family and acknowledging that it's really unsettling, but also appreciating that people are really hurt and really angry. And the government hasn't responded.

I'm always trying to complicate messages about following rules and obeying the law. I made sure they knew that Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. were breaking the law. They need to know sometimes that's what's required. They're certainly unsettled and it's a scary time for everybody, but they do appreciate that when you've been hurt and harmed and no one is given justice, sometimes eruptions happen.
This story originally aired on The audio was adapted for the Life Kit podcast by Audrey Nguyen, and the text was adapted for digital by Sylvie Douglis. If you want more Life Kit, subscribe to our weekly newsletter. All Things Considered.
I ask them, would they call it a headache if it was their child or their sister or their brother or their parent? We're talking about our fellow human beings. What would you do on behalf of your own?

And then my work as a parent is to raise my kids in a way where they experience communities of color, black people, Latino people, being human beings they identify with as part of their human network. And that's something that hasn't really happened in part because of segregation in the United States.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How White Parents Can Talk To Their Kids About Race : Life Kit

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
NPR's Michel Martin talks with Jennifer Harvey, author of Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America, about how to talk with white kids about racially charged events - and how to keep the conversation going.

# data[].attributes.headline
Your Kids Aren't Too Young to Talk About Race

# data[].attributes.subject
Your Kids Aren't Too Young to Talk About Race

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Your Kids Aren't Too Young to Talk About Race: Resource Roundup - Pretty Good

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Your kids aren't too young to talk about race. Here are a few resources to get your started.

# data[].attributes.body
Parent Books

So You Want to Talk About Race (Book) by Ijeoma Oluo

https://www.amazon.ca/You-Want-Talk-About-Race/dp/1580056776

Me and White Supremacy (Book) by Layla F Saad

https://www.amazon.ca/Me-White-Supremacy-Combat-Ancestor/dp/1728209803

# data[].attributes.body
“What's The Difference: Being Different is Amazing” by Doyin Richards

https://www.amazon.ca/Whats-Difference-Being-Different-Amazing/dp/1250107091

“Lets Talk About Race” By Julius Lester

https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/lets-talk-about-race/9780064462266-item.html

“Rosa” by Nikki Giovanni

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0312376022/

A Kids Book About Racism by Jelani Memori

https://www.amazon.ca/Kids-Book-About-Racism-ebook/dp/B088GYYHJX

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Hair Love | Oscar®-Winning Short Film (Full) | Sony Pictures Animation

# data[].attributes.headline
Youtube Video Resources for Parents & Children to Spark the Conversation About Racism & Individual Differences 

# data[].attributes.subject
Youtube Video Resources for Parents & Children to Spark the Conversation About Racism & Individual Differences 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Don't Deny It - Defy It | Steven Universe | Cartoon Network