Today is Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday.

We live 5 minutes from the Lincoln Memorial, so next year I hope we can go down and hear the 4th grade class from Watkins Elementary School in Washington, D.C. give his I Have a Dream speech, which they do every year. I was disappointed we missed it, but I didn't realize until yesterday that they do it just a few days before the holiday weekend. Better luck next year.
In the meantime, I leave you with a video of last year's class speech that I found [sorry about the ad that disrupts the flow midway]. (The Washington Post also filmed the same speech; sadly, they cut it down to just a couple of minutes, but it's still moving to watch.)
And, just in case you couldn't find it on your own, here's Dr. King giving the original speech in full. And here is the full text of the speech. There are many amazing passages in the speech, but the one that jumped out at me personally as I read it to our kids was this phrase:
for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
In general, I prefer for this space to be about preserving memories, but today I'm sharing something near to my heart.
It all started when I read Po Bronson's Nurture Shock in 2009. While fascinating, its hook rests on the 'science' of parenting. I realize Bronson defends the book by saying that the science cited is 10 to 20 years in the making and rigorous--but still. We can see for ourselves that parenting trends ebb and flow as each new generation thinks they can do better.
However, there was one chapter in the book, and within it, one nugget of information, that I haven't been able to forget. In fact, it felt so true that we acted on it, as a family, immediately.
Then, last May, CNN announced a study in the U.S. that was intended to test whether a group of kindergartners had developed racial bias at such a tender age. The answer, per CNN, was yes, and mirrors the studies cited by Bronson in his chapter on parenting and race.
The statistic that keeps coming back to me from Bronson's book is that in one study, 75% of white parents never, or almost never, talked about race and skin color with their kids. Meanwhile, about 75% of black parents deliberately talked about race with their children.
It's a likely explanation for why the kids designated as white at times heavily skewed (89%, for example) in favor of a cartoon character with lighter skin tones when choosing the one they'd like as a classmate or playmate.
In the towns and neighborhoods where we live, I'm convinced that parents put an extremely high priority on raising racially-neutral, unbiased children. In addition, in our daughter's class at school, I can see for myself that the heritage of every continent in the world is represented.
Why should we be specific, rather than staying silent, in order to further racial equality? Because, if all this science is to be believed, kids can see for themselves that skin colors vary. Not just a little, but a lot. And even when those skin tones vary on the same street, or on the same playground, silence from the parents means...that 5-year-olds fill in that gap in their knowledge with their own theories.
Maybe one child will think that their parents never mentioning skin color means that everyone is equal. Maybe another child will let their friends make up their minds for them. Maybe yet another child will think that it means only people who look like them should be their good friends.
Too often, the studies Bronson cites show that the latter is the case for white children in the U.S. Because such an overwhelming percentage of white parents don't talk about race, it's rather hard to say that this isn't a factor in children deciding, for themselves, that sharing the same skin tone is important when choosing playmates and friends.
What I realized in 2009, when I first learned this, was: it doesn't matter what the science says. We (D and I) have clear ideas about how all people should be treated equally regardless of their physical characteristics, skin color included. So we talk about this, in very specific terms, with our kids. And as they get older, we will talk further about race as a social construct, cultural and racial identities, and DNA, and how they intersect and overlap, both now and in the past.
If you're a parent, I urge you to do the same.
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I can never think about these issues without recalling this post from Melissa's blog, which led me to read this post and many others on the blog, Love Isn't Enough.