What White Kids Need to Hear

 Yesterday I read two books to my daughters (ages 8 and 11 right now):

Yours for Justice, Ida B. Wells: The Daring Life of a Crusading Journalist by Philip Dray
and

Ruth and the Green Book by Calvin Alexander Ramsey.

Both are good resources and I recommend them.  Note: we didn't read these because it's Black History Month.  We picked the one about Ida B. Wells randomly from the library and the one about the Green Book is a resource for a year-long anti-racism curriculum I was editing for work.

I don't think anything in these books was completely new to either of my kids.  This is stuff we talk about all the time as the opportunity arises.

But afterwards, a while afterwards, my 8 year old turned to me and said, "Mom, were there White people who didn't think slavery ... who didn't think segregation was okay?"

And I said, "There were lots of White people who if you asked them would have said that slavery and segregation were wrong.  But they wouldn't necessarily have said or done anything to change those things, or been willing to stop benefiting from them.

There were lots of White people who didn't see anything wrong with slavery or segregation and were happy to keep benefiting from them.

There were some White people who even worked to keep slavery and segregation going.

But there were also some White people who worked to stop slavery and to end segregation."

This is something White kids need to hear.  They need to know these truths.

But then I went one further.  I said, "In our family, your great-grandma and great-grandpa moved into the house that they lived in when I was a kid.  That neighborhood was all White.  No Black people lived there.  And then some things started to change and it became possible for Black people to buy houses there.  A lot of White people moved away from the neighborhood.  There were realtors who came and knocked on my grandparents' door and told them they should sell their house right away because a bad thing was happening and Black people were moving into the neighborhood.  My grandparents said no.  They liked their house and they liked their neighborhood and they were just fine with having Black neighbors.  It wasn't a really big thing to do.  They didn't help change any laws, although I think they were part of a neighborhood organization that got together specifically to defeat that kind of red-lining and scare mongering.  They just did the right thing in the situation they were in and refused to be scared of having Black neighbors.  Sometimes you don't have to do anything really BIG to make a difference.  Just the right things."

That is also something White kids need to hear.  They need to hear the truth about where their own family story fits with the stories of slavery and segregation, abolition and civil rights.  This happens to be a truth in our family history, but it is not the only truth (go back 50 - 200 years and there are a lot of different ancestors in different places in relation to race relations) and as circumstances allow my kids will hear other truths - like that many of my great-grandparents would have used the N word with no second thoughts, that we have ancestors who were probably slave owners (in a small way - no big plantations as far as I can tell), etc.  

And they need to hear that you start where you are, with the situations you encounter.  And you do the right thing to the best of your ability.  And that doesn't make you exempt from living in a culture of White supremacy, but that you always have the "right to choose which side / shall feel the stubborn ounces of [your] weight." (Bonaro W. Overstreet)