Is It Right to Teach Children about Racism?
Jan 22nd, 2008 by Micah Tillman | 6 Comments |
The Wife and I went to a new church on Sunday. It was lovely. A mix of jazz and four-part-harmony a cappella. Awesome. I’ve never heard a jazz ensemble in church before.
Much less in a mennonite church!
Anyway, so the church was mennonite, which means it’s a “peace and social justice” church. They dedicate Sunday’s service to MLK, Jr., had readings from traditional African-American services, sang spirituals, etc.
(Can I say a baptist “Praise God!” for spirituals? Where would we be without them? No blues. No jazz. No rock-n-roll.)
This church is one of the ones which has a “children’s lesson” in the middle of the service. The children are called up to the front, and all sit around the pastor who tells them a story with some moral or other. Then they get dismissed to go to Children’s Church, where they can play games and sing songs and not be bored by the grown-up stuff.
But here’s where I got confused/worried/intrigued. The children’s lesson was a reading from My Brother Martin, a picture book by MLK, Jr.’s sister Christine King Farris. I thought it was very well done. It’s simple but doesn’t dumb things down for the kids.
But I wondered whether that wasn’t a problem. In it, Farris talks about how she and her brothers would play with the white kids across the street, and didn’t think anything of it. She then describes how the King children discovered racism when the white kids suddenly weren’t allowed to play with them anymore.
Again, it is very well done, very powerful. But is racism the kind of thing to which you’re supposed to introduce children (the kids were anywhere from toddlers to elementary schoolers)?
Don’t you ruin innocence by not only telling a person they’re innocent, but telling them exactly what it is they’re innocent about? Isn’t racism PG-13 material, along with violence and sex?
But, then again, how do you teach children about heroes without describing the evil they overcame? And what is better than having heroes as a child?
Those were questions I couldn’t help but ask myself. I was so happy to see the children being trained up in the way they should go, but I was also worried for them.
We’ve taught them that its wrong. We don’t even bring it up to them until they start asking questions. Then we answer the questions and correct what needs to be corrected. But just because something is wrong or bad doesn’t mean you ignore it.
I was, as far as I can remember, taught about it at a young age because of the way my mom and grandma were treated in the 50′s and 60′s.
I prefer to teach my kids what isright. It’s the same message, just a more positive vibe.
The kids I worked with in the city were between 5 an 12. While you would expect the older ones to know something about racism, you would expect more innocence in the younger ones (that was a horrible sentence). One day while working with first graders, a light skinned African American boy asked me some rather thoughtful questions about his assignment. After answering his questions, as I moved to help another student, a darker skinned boy next to him said “Stop being white!”
Kids are exposed to racism. Its a fact. While these kids who lived in a gritty part of Wilmington are probably exposed to it in a more obvious way than their white suburban counterparts, they are all exposed. I think the suburban or rural kids just get it in a more subtle manner.
I talk to my teenaged students quite a bit about racism and find that many of them have never had a “safe (as safe as a classroom full of peers can be)” environment to discuss such things.
Hello Micah:
As Amanda mentioned, I did introduce her to racism early. Not because I wanted her to become a racist, but to teach her sensitivity towards those that society deems different. I wanted to teach her that we are all unique and have different values, while at the same time teaching her to appreciate those differences. Also, to show her that being of a different color, race, gender, etc is not a negative thing, but a good thing. Our world is harsh and they will become exposed to the ugliness sooner or later. I wanted to give her the opportunity of understanding racism on a personal level, so that she could truly feel the hurt that others feel when faced with racism. I hope that I have taught her to love her heritage and culture and not shy from it. This lesson has taken me into adulthood before I came to love and appreciate my heritage.
I hope that I have taught her to love her heritage and culture and not shy from it.
She has indeed.