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Guide for Selecting Anti-Bias Children’s Books

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Guide for Selecting Anti-Bias Children’s Books

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Early Childhood Anti-Bias Education Booklists

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Early Childhood Anti-Bias Education Booklists

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Early Childhood Anti-Bias Education Booklists

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Recommended books for young children, teachers, and parents for each chapter of Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves as well as additional resources on anti-bias themes and topics.

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"If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you do not see." -James Baldwin

Anti-racist work in all schools is essential. It is the exercise of hope, the practice of undoing and dismantling systems of oppression, the practice of freedom and of truth-telling. Anti-racist work is the practice of healing and of restoring; it is a practice of love.

We live in a time where it is increasingly clear that Black lives are deeply undervalued and violently treated. And as the words anti-racist and equity become dangerously trendy, educators should pause and grapple with what they truly mean.

It is important that we have a shared understanding of what anti-racism in schools looks like, that we have an understanding of what it is not, and that we embrace the understanding that anti-racist work is never completely finished, nor does it always look the same. I hope, however, we may begin to think about anti-racist work in schools in ways that are holistic and practical.

Anti-racist educators believe in love.

Many educators operate from the premise that they love their students. In fact, many harmful and violent teachers operate from a place of "love." But anti-racist educators understand that love and silence are deeply contradictory. The love that underpins our practice is not the form of love often associated with passivity and inaction. For anti-racist educators, love is action. Love is sharp. Love is truth-telling. Love is fighting for what it is right. Love is doing what is right.

Anti-racist educators, particularly those who teach Black students, understand that part of the act of love is understanding what this country has intentionally done-and continues to do-to Black bodies. It is love that compels our practices.

Anti-racist educators understand that, in love, they must never be silent. Ever. Anti-racist educators understand that their positions as teachers, leaders, policymakers and social workers are positions of great privilege and power, and that they have the ability to leave this world better than they found it.

Anti-racist educators study and are committed to deepening their critical consciousness.

Anti-racist educators understand that they must be lifelong learners. They believe in the power of developing a critical consciousness, which comes from reading, from studying, from deep scholarship, from humility, from listening to and engaging with others, and from constantly examining and re-examining their own ideas, beliefs and truths.

Educators who are seeking to be anti-racist must understand the nuanced, complex, deliberate design of racism in the United States and across the diaspora. Educators in the United States who are seeking to be anti-racist have to acknowledge and recognize that this country was built upon racist principles. They must be willing to commit to a lifestyle of studying what racism looks like in all its forms.

This means that we have to know how to identify racism; how racism is carried out and built in systems and structures; how people hold, sustain, maintain and perpetuate racism; and how people of color can internalize racism.

Anti-racist educators know and continue to seek out the names of those who are never called upon and the work that is hardly ever revered. They recognize that we should study more deeply the tactics of the Black Panther Party and the Freedom Schools. Dr. Gholdy Muhammad is a true leader and scholar-warrior in this regard, as her work focuses on the ways the Black Literary Societies of the early 1800s operated and creates a framework for how we should be using the power of literacy to teach and empower Black students.

Anti-racist educators believe in the intellectual power of teaching. They believe they have to honor the practice and take teaching very, very seriously because they know and understand how schools have been used either to oppress or to liberate.

Anti-racist educators move away from checklists and embrace a holistic approach.

Anti-racist education and anti-racist schooling cannot be packaged or prescribed, arranged into a checklist, rubric or formula. Anti-racist educators understand that anti-racist work begins with the self. They begin by grappling with their beliefs, mindsets, philosophies and biases about the world, education and their students. They work to become conscious of the intentional, multiple ways schools mirror society and how all aspects of school systems are designed to uphold the oppressive aims of the society in which they operate.

Anti-racist educators recognize that schools are doing exactly what they were built to do in this country: Exclude. Silence. Erase. Promote white supremacy. They recognize, therefore, that upending racism in schools will end schooling practices as we have come to know them.

To think about all of the parts of schooling, not just the classroom, anti-racist educators take a holistic approach and consider many dimensions of schooling through an anti-racist, anti-oppressive lens. These dimensions include:

The demographics of staff, particularly in schools with predominantly BIPOC students

School leadership and paths to school leadership

School governance (e.g., network and district leadership)

School curriculum

Special education

Teaching and learning practices

Definitions and measurements of academic success

Definitions and measurements of teacher success

Professional development

New-teacher training and support

The wellness of teachers, staff and students

School mission and vision statements

School, network and district policies

School culture and approaches to discipline

School infrastructure

Allocation of resources and budget

It is important we recognize this list is not exhaustive. In order to be anti- racist educators, we must be steadfast and consistent and consider all aspects of schooling.

We have to commit to continuously evolving, pushing back, studying, engaging in critical discourse with others, examining what is happening in our minds and bodies, and listening to students. Anti-racist educators understand that an anti-racist approach to schooling could very well mean an ending to schools as we know them. They understand this is how we begin to get free.

Anti-racism is healing and love in action.

The work of anti-racism in schools is incomplete without an understanding of the integral role that healing must play in the practices of freedom. Healers are people who remove harm and reduce the impact of violence, people who restore and repair.

The greatest of healers consider the whole person and seek to get to the heart of the matter. Anti-racist educators understand that all forms of oppression are connected, that it is not possible to care about racism and disregard the violence in sexism, classism, homophobia and more. The hearts of anti-racist advocates push us to be concerned for all violations of human rights.

The ways that we as educators must care for ourselves and create educational spaces that center healing our students' bodies is crucial. We must create educational spaces that tend to the harm and violence that has been enacted against BIPOC bodies and minds-specifically those of our children. Anti-racist educators recognize that this is the work of undoing, of dismantling, of liberating, of healing and of truth-telling. This is our collective work.

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What Anti-racism Really Means for Educators

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"If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you do not see." -James Baldwin Anti-racist work in all schools is essential. It is the exercise of hope, the practice of undoing and dismantling systems of oppression, the practice of freedom and of truth-telling.

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Working for Racial Justice as a White Teacher 

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Working for Racial Justice as a White Teacher 

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Robert Roth on an anti-racist approach to high-school history

Camilo Hunica

Editor's Note: In 1988, a teacher most commonly had 15 years of experience. In recent years, that number is closer to just three years leading a classroom. The "On Teaching" series focuses on the wisdom of veteran teachers.
One of this year's largest youth-led Black Lives Matter protests took place on June 3 in front of Mission High School in San Francisco, where Robert Roth taught U.S. History and Ethnic Studies from 2005 until he retired in 2018. Roth was in the crowd, listening to teenage speakers who were urging white people like himself-including white educators, who make up 79 percent of the U.S. teaching force-to step up as allies in the fight for racial justice.

It was a message that Roth has been attuned to for a long time. In 1964, when Roth was himself a teenager, he joined what became the nation's largest anti-school-segregation boycott in New York City. As a student at Columbia University in 1968, he was a key part of one of the largest college anti-war and anti-racist protests of that era. And since he first started teaching in San Francisco in 1988, Roth has been grappling with what it means to be an anti-racist teacher working in majority Black and Latino schools.

For Roth, in his 30 years in education this meant changing his curricula to highlight the role people of color played in transforming our society; helping develop the ethnic-studies program at Mission High School; working with students and teachers to make ethnic studies a part of every high school in San Francisco Unified District today; and learning from his students and from teachers of color about how to make his classrooms work for everyone, so that all students feel intellectually challenged and engaged.

More in this series

In conversations in 2018 and 2020, I asked Roth to reflect on how he approached teaching U.S. history as an anti-racist educator. This Q&A has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

Kristina Rizga: As part of your U.S. history class this year, you recently taught a unit on the civil-rights movement. Can you talk about the content of this unit?

Robert Roth: The traditional history of the civil-rights movement-the one that you find in most history textbooks-goes from 1954 to 1965. It starts with Brown v. Board of Education and then focuses on Dr. King and Rosa Parks and nonviolent civil disobedience. It ends with the march in Selma, the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, and then the Voting Rights Act in 1965. It is a triumphal story of the successful end to legal segregation, and Black people securing voting rights.

I teach the events that are part of this narrative, but I also teach about the massive protests in the North over police brutality and segregated housing that happened at the same time. I teach that in 1965, after the Voting Rights Act was passed, the Watts Rebellion took place over racist police practices, and that the fight against police violence and voter suppression continues to this day. The Movement for Black Lives is a continuation of this fight, and not just something that started a few years ago. We study Dr. King and Rosa Parks, but we also study Malcolm X, Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, and the Black Panther Party. We use resources like the Zinn Education Project and Rethinking Schools to help reframe the curriculum.

History is made by masses of people, not just by three or four great leaders. If all you teach is the history of icons, it doesn't place any of our students in that history. When students learn, for example, about the Children's March in Birmingham or the Chicano student-led walkouts in East Los Angeles in 1968, they can see themselves in these movements and can see that young people just like them have changed the world. Especially at a time like today, when Black and brown youth are leading such a powerful new wave of activism, this is so important. History is happening right now, and a history class can be a window into the ways in which the past and present are intricately connected.

Rizga: What do students produce as work in your classroom?

Roth: They do everything! They write essays, work on group presentations, write poems, act out scenarios from the past, imagine themselves as part of any given historical moment, do research papers and reflection pieces, analyze text, and create beautiful posters with their own point of view about what they are learning. They present their work to their classmates, publish pieces to share with other classes, and debate current issues. Their imagination and creativity always amaze me.

I'm always giving feedback, pushing students to analyze text and not just summarize it, to use evidence to back up their opinions. But I don't want to thwart their own intellectual energy. I want them to have the space to explore and take risks and to think deeply about a subject, not just memorize a random fact or date. I want the classroom to come alive with their thoughts and their voices.

Rizga: What are some of the most important things you've learned about grading and commenting on student work?

Roth: It's really important to let students know that you will be in dialogue with them about all aspects of their work, including their grades. If a student knows that they are seen and heard, they can handle critique and challenge. But if they feel condescension or disrespect, they will very often tune out. An effective teacher is able to name a student's strengths, and not just their weaknesses. If the back-and-forth is just negative-looking at what's not there, picking on what a student doesn't yet know how to do-then that's a recipe for disengagement. And in order to understand the student's strength, you have to understand the student. Where is this young person coming from? What are the ways in which you see their brilliance, their intellect? What are the areas in which you can define clearly that they need improvement, and how do you engage with them for a year in those areas? This academic dialogue with students is really the centerpiece of a year's work.

I love to look at student work. I love to see what their ideas are, what strikes them, how they are growing academically. And I want to get right in the middle of their process and muck around with them as we figure out together how to build their skills. That means reading carefully what they write, not just correcting grammar without commenting on their ideas. And it means drawing lessons about my own teaching from their work: What do I have to teach better? What was unclear in what I asked students to do? What concepts do I need to teach more clearly?

When you have a system based on grades, you have to give consistent feedback so that students know how their work is being evaluated. If you're not in that kind of consistent academic dialogue with them, then you are holding all the power: Students have no idea what you want, and they have few ways to challenge how they are being graded. At Mission High, teachers meet regularly to share student work, and to figure out how to give meaningful feedback to help students grow. And we try, as best as we can, to return work on a regular basis-not just put it in a folder and give it back at the end of a marking period.

Rizga: How do you build relationships with your students?

Roth: First, have a sense of humor. A high-school teacher is working with teenagers. If you don't have a sense of humor, forget it. Having said that, the core of my relationship with students is about their academic success. Yes, many students will connect with me about challenges in their lives or just to talk, and my door is always open. If I sense something is wrong, or I learn about a struggle outside of class, I will reach out. And if I hear about a student's success in another class or something that they've done in the community, I'm all over it.

But the center of our relationship is about school. I'm cautious about invading their private space if they're not reaching out to me. But they know that I care about their success, that they can talk to me at any time about the class, about their grade, about their other classes. And that I will take their work seriously, remember what they did on the last project, highlight their achievements, and never give up on them. That's the core of it.

Rizga: What advice do you have for white educators who, like you, work mostly with Black and Latino students and want to develop an anti-racist teaching practice?

Roth: Everything we've been talking about this entire interview relates to anti-racist teaching. It's about respecting our students, engaging with them, giving young people the space to show their own intellect and scholarship, and having all of this inform our practice as teachers. I've been teaching for 30 years, but I always look to learn more from my students, from their parents and guardians, from their communities, and from my colleagues of color. I have never forgotten that their lives are very different from mine. I have been schooled continually to listen and to learn and to actively support and fight for the leadership of people of color. As a teacher, I am always attentive to cues from my students about what they need, what kind of relationship they want to build with me as a teacher.

You're not just the teacher of students of color; you are teaching within Black and brown communities that are being marginalized and gentrified in places like the San Francisco Bay Area. Many of our students are undocumented and have had harrowing experiences getting and staying here. When there is a challenge to DACA, it impacts so many of them and their families. And yet here they are, each day in class, hanging in and doing their work. As a white educator, I think you have to see all of this and feel it and stretch yourself across boundaries.

Rizga: What are some of the key moments in your career that contributed to professional growth?

Roth: Early on in my teaching career, I was part of an educators' network called IRISE, which was led by Black teachers throughout the Bay Area. IRISE challenged teachers to reflect on their work with Black students; to study the pedagogy developed by Black educators like Asa Hilliard, Theresa Perry, and Noma LeMoine, to name just a few; and to be change-makers at our own schools. I've tried to do that throughout my years of teaching.

I've also been teaching partners with many teachers of color, including Pirette McKamey, who is now the first Black principal at Mission High, and who has been the touchstone for my development as an educator throughout these 30 years. That study, those relationships are so fundamental for white educators who want to grow as anti-racist educators. Anti-racist teaching involves more than changing curriculum. It demands a deep, heartfelt love for the students that we teach. You have to develop relationships with students that are very deep and that transcend just their years in high school. I don't think there's a formula, but you have to approach all of this as a lifelong journey.

As for curriculum: It's an exciting time to be a history teacher, because the teaching of history is being challenged more than at any time I can remember. That's why President Trump has gone out of his way to attack sites like the Zinn Education Project and the 1619 Project. The white-male supremacist narrative about U.S. history is beginning to be turned on its head, and anti-racist history teachers are confronted with rising to the challenge. How do we help students make sense of this period? How do we teach about the origins of policing in the U.S.? How the prison system exploded as a system of social control against Black people in the period following Reconstruction? How do we address the rise of anti-Chinese racism in this period? How do we make time to cover something like the Mendez v. Westminster case, because it shows so clearly the connections between Black and Latinx movements? Or the ways in which the coronavirus has impacted Native people on Pine Ridge Reservation?

Rizga: Which fundamental changes to the overall system would make educators more effective?

Roth: For one thing, there has to be a priority on the education of Black and brown students: More resources, higher pay for teachers in schools that serve these communities, incentives for experienced and successful teachers to stay in these schools. I think that education programs have to recruit teachers of color and be much more attuned to anti-racist pedagogy that has been out there for a long time.

Teachers should not have to teach five classes. They need more time to look at student work, to meet with colleagues, and to revise curriculum. This is all about how much money a society is willing to devote to the education of children. In a city like San Francisco, where there is so much private money, the school system is always facing budget cuts. How can that be? Veteran teachers who have honed their craft and been successful with students need to be given time to mentor new teachers.

I think that the whole standardized-testing system, which has been a billion-dollar industry, is a cruel joke. There needs to be a much more holistic system to evaluate schools, keep educators accountable for the outcomes of Black and brown students, and not just show us differences in income, race, and access. I've watched these tests be redesigned for 30 years, and they are still doing the same thing: showing you differences in opportunities and then replicating disadvantages.

Rizga: What advice would you give to new teachers coming in now?

Roth: I would say, "Hang in there." It's an incredibly rewarding journey. The first few years are going to be more than hard, but they will also be so exciting. Find some mentors that you trust, really get to know your students, and don't give up quickly. You can't become an effective teacher in two years. You have to go through the bumps, and each year the rewards get greater.

Teachers are glorified on the one hand, but on the other hand, disrespected and not seen as scholars or thinkers-instead as people who just deliver information and get along with kids. Researchers at a university get more of a voice about teaching than a teacher who's been doing it for decades. Because of all of these things, there is a lot of pressure for young teachers to leave. But it's an incredible job, and there's incredible joy to it. Stick with it.
This article is part of our project "On Teaching," which is supported by grants from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Panta Rhea Foundation.

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Working for Racial Justice as a White Teacher

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Robert Roth on an anti-racist approach to high-school history Editor's Note: In 1988, a teacher most commonly had 15 years of experience. In recent years, that number is closer to just three years leading a classroom. The "On Teaching" series focuses on the wisdom of veteran teachers.

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ALL students Need Anti-racism Education 

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ALL students Need Anti-racism Education 

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Schools across the nation are committing to the all-important work of anti-racism. Schools with predominately white or privileged students should be no exception.

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subscribe to Parenting: Difficult Conversations podcast

subscribe to Parenting: Difficult Conversations podcast

Even babies notice differences like skin color, eye shape and hair texture. Here's how to handle conversations about race, racism, diversity and inclusion, even with very young children.
A few things to remember:

Don't shush or shut them down if they mention race.

Don't wait for kids to bring it up.

Be proactive, helping them build a positive awareness of diversity.

When a child experiences prejudice, grown-ups need to both address the feelings and fight the prejudices.

You don't have to avoid topics like slavery or the Holocaust. Instead, give the facts and focus on resistance and allies.

In addition to Jeanette Betancourt, senior vice president for Social Impact at Sesame Workshop, we spoke to Beverly Daniel Tatum: We recommend her TEDx talk as well as her book, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race.
Additional Resources:

Babies begin to notice race at 6 months old - in fact, according to this pair of studies by Professor Kang Lee at the University of Toronto, they actually show signs of racial bias by this age.

One in 10 children is multiracial - according to Pew Research Center. This includes children with parents of two different races, plus those with at least one multiracial parent.

Watch the whole "I Love My Hair!" video from Sesame Street.

Thanks to Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton. Derrick Gay, and Jinnie Spiegler of the Anti-Defamation League, which has a wide range of resources for anti-bias education.

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Talking Race With Young Children : Parenting: Difficult Conversations

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subscribe to Parenting: Difficult Conversations podcast subscribe to Parenting: Difficult Conversations podcast Even babies notice differences like skin color, eye shape and hair texture. Here's how to handle conversations about race, racism, diversity and inclusion, even with very young children. A few things to remember: Don't shush or shut them down if they mention race.

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Your Kids Aren't Too Young to Talk About Race: Resource Roundup

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Your Kids Aren't Too Young to Talk About Race: Resource Roundup

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Your Kids Aren't Too Young to Talk About Race: Resource Roundup - Pretty Good

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Your kids aren't too young to talk about race. Here are a few resources to get your started.

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[Image description: Illustration from All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold & Suzanne Kaufman. Children of various races and faiths pointing to locations on a world map.] If you're nervous about talking about race with your kids, these books about racial diversity will give you an easy place to start destigmatizing difference & celebrating racial diversity. Bold and *marked books are written or illustrated by #OwnVoices makers of color. Raising Luminaries is free and accessible for readers who can't afford a paywall. Donate or shop using an affiliate link via| Paypal | Venmo | Ko-fi | Buy a t-shirt | Buy a book Anti-Racism For Beginners: Part 1 Acknowledging & Celebrating Racial Diversity Posts may contain affiliate links, which allow me to earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Check out the full affiliate disclosure along with my statement of accountability. If you're into supporting libraries (please do!) more than consumerism, you can also support my work directly:

...

" How do I teach my kids to be anti-racist when I'm still learning myself?"
- Anonymous, Books For Littles Facebook Group (archived)

...

It's normal to get flustered when when our children talk about race. But if we let nervousness keep us silent and still, our fear becomes a weapon.

Growing up, I was told that discrimination would magically disappear if we stop acknowledging racial difference. All people are the same. Skin color doesn't matter. Only bad people are racist. If we are all nice and well-behaved, racism will go away.

This is the fallacy of colorblind ideology. It's a tool to keep us complicit in white supremacy. Don't be a tool.

We must talk about race with young kids. Racism thrives in silence.

When we refuse to talk about race at an early age, children absorb our silence as shame. We're taught that if we have nothing nice to say - say nothing at all. Well - white folks are aggressively silent when it comes to race! Does that mean that being Brown or Black is something to be ashamed of?

Kids pick up when we refuse to acknowledge racial difference - and how we treat people of color. Why are we surprised then, to see nice, well-behaved children reflect unconscious bias against people of color, then grow into adults who blame people of color for violence and harm against them?
(It's your job to be that adult.)
Your child needs at least one adult to speak truth to BS about racial assumptions.

My White mother who openly talked about race from birth - and how society would perceive and treat me because of my multiracial heritage. She raised me to understand that discrimination against me was not my fault. Violence would happen to me because of my race, my gender, my class but it wasn't caused by me - it was caused by white supremacy.

The Mominator refused to let me internalize the idea that I deserved racism. To do that, she first needed to acknowledge my race and the fact that I would have obstacles in life that white kids didn't.

We can help our children understand racism - and empower them to work toward racial equality.

Raise kids of color to feel proud of their culture and their right to self-advocate.

Raise white kids to recognize their duty to stand up against injustice.

But first, you've gotta acknowledge that racial differences - even though they are an imaginary, human-imagined construct, exist as a real thing in our society, with real-life impact on real-life people.

Start by telling our kids that yes - we do see skin color and racial identities.

For folks who were never given space to talk about racism and discrimination as kids (or even racial diversity), it's scary to start. We don't want to say the wrong thing and mess it up.

No worries, we are going to start very gently with non-controversial, easygoing books that just show kids that racial diversity exists. In future collections, we'll get into more emotionally loaded topics - like racial discrimination, racial privilege, colorism, and the subtle tools that uphold white supremacy, such as white fragility and respectability politics.

And this diversity is glorious.

Acknowledge & Celebrating Racial Diversity

From two anonymous BFL members:

"My daughter came home saying she didn't like her brown skin and wanted white skin and 'bright' hair instead. I'm looking for books that reinforce pride in who she is."

"My white daughter said to me the other day, 'I don't like dark skin. ' I ran to the internet to research books like these."

Yikes.

Use these comments as learning opportunities. Read these books to discuss biases they've absorbed during a quiet time home together (story time!) Encourage kids to speak bias aloud so they can hear how ridiculous it sounds, think about where it comes from, and realize how it develops.

When children point out that they like particular skin tones, body shapes, or hair textures more than others - don't shout at them or insist they are wrong. Kids this age can't untangle feelings from fact. Shaming them for a gut reaction is just going to get them to clam up.

Instead, help them untangle bias from fact on their own. Ask why they feel this way. Use in an open, non-judgemental tone. Keep asking questions to unpack these assumptions. We're not here to tell them what to think, we're here to model critical thinking about racial bias moving forward.

Discuss how all bodies are good bodies - how we differ, and what we have in common.

All Are Welcome, *Lovely, We're Different, We're The Same

Acknowledge & Celebrate Cultural Diversity

When we over-simplify racism, we tell kids that racism is simply bias against people based on skin color - it's not.
How do we counter the entrenched dominant narrative's focus on whiteness?
(That's colorism, another problem we can tackle later.)

Racism expands beyond skin color - it's assumptions and discrimination against individuals and groups of people, based on racial identity. This includes not just skin color, but also cultural norms and behavior, language, and other markers of racial and ethnic identity.
*On The Day You Begin, *Where Are You From?, *Alma And How She Got Her Name
White supremacy is assuming that racism would be over if people of color just assimilated and acted more like white people, that assimilation is even a goal for people of color, and that non-white culture is deviant or inferior to whiteness.

Read stories that show how people of color are not monolithic - we're complex individuals who can't be reduced to the caricatures of mainstream media. Our ethnic heritage is something valuable worth exploring, and our ancestors traditions, achievements, and challenges have an impact on who we are today.

But our race and ethnicity is not the only thing that defines us. Show kids how we all have a right to pride in our heritage - just not at the expense of punching down another culture.

Not pictured: *Islandborn is another lovely book, which I recommend with reservations. In 2018, several survivors came forth about Junot Díaz's problematic behavior toward women. One of these reports has been shown to have been overblown - but I'm not comfortable with the way we're dismissing all survivors of his actions because of this. The book itself is great - so I'll let you decide how to move forward with all that on your own.
Support these resources via Paypal | Venmo | Ko-fi | Buy a t-shirt | Buy a book
Explain How Diversity Makes Us Stronger

Having a broad range of experiences to draw from, mindsets to brainstorm, and abilities to solve the problems facing humanity is a very good thing. Human diversity is good for all of humanity and evolution and stuff. I am pretty sure this is SCIENCE.

The idea that winnowing humanity into one make-believe-super-race, or segregating us all into silos based on our racial identity sounds ABSURD. Right? RIGHT?!

Obviously some families are not absorbing the fact that genetic diversity is good for society and the fate of humanity, so we have to make this clear. That whole 'melting pot' assimilation thing our teachers celebrated 20 years ago turned out to be a bad idea.

What we need is more of a chunky stew, with folks proudly retaining and celebrating our individual racial and cultural identities while cognizant of the challenges and discrimination many groups face. These books help kids see how diversity makes us stronger.

Stay Curious, Stand Brave & Talk About Race

Don't stop here. Now that your kids understand that human skin, hair, and all of that stuff comes in a broad change of colors, shapes, and textures - help them see how all people deserve basic human rights, respect, and kindness.

Click here for part 2 of raising Anti-Racist Kids - Children's Books That Teach Kids About Social Power & Paternalism

If you want reminders when I update these resources and publish new podcasts, join the email list.

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Anti-Racism For Kids 101: Starting To Talk About Race - Raising Luminaries

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Image description: Illustration from All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold & Suzanne Kaufman. Children of various races and faiths pointing to locations on a world map.] If you're nervous about talking about race with your kids, these books about racial diversity will give you an easy place to start destigmatizing difference & celebrating racial diversity.

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Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, president emerita of Spelman College, is the 2017 Mimi and Peter E. Haas Distinguished Visitor at the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University. She is the author of several books including the best-selling " Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" and Other Conversations about Race. A thought-leader in higher education, she was a 2013 recipient of the Carnegie Academic Leadership Award and the 2014 recipient of the American Psychological Association Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to Psychology. She and her husband, Dr. Travis Tatum, are the parents of two sons.

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Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, president emerita of Spelman College, is the 2017 Mimi and Peter E. Haas Distinguished Visitor at the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University. She is the author of several books including the best-selling "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?"