I’m A Child Psychologist. But I Can’t Solve The Problem That Made My Daughter Cry |
“Being in this town, with its loving and supportive community, has not spared my biracial, Black-presenting daughter from the stings of racism and bias,” writes the author.
If your house is anything like mine, KPop Demon Hunters rules your playlists. My 7-year-old daughter (who skips about 30% of the movie to avoid the scary bits) is an absolute devotee.
She proudly shared that she had created a KPop Demon Hunters club after school, where she and fellow devotees lip-sync the catchy lyrics to Takedown or Golden and act out various scenes under the clear skies of the elementary school playground.
We’re sure to see scores of children dressed as Rumi, the movie’s central character, for Halloween. But my daughter won’t be one of them.
A few nights ago, she tearfully told me, “I can’t be Rumi because I don’t have light skin. I have brown skin. Some girls with light skin told me that.”
Silence.
I drew in a sharp breath. I felt dizzy. My heart was in the lowest pit of my stomach.
And I realised, with equal parts sadness and fury, that it is silence – the silence of white parents on topics of race, racism, and bias – that perpetuates the conditions that made that moment on the playground possible.
The U.S. continues to be a deeply racialised society, one with a strong and swift discriminatory undercurrent. Parents who do not want their children swept away in the undertow must break their silence and talk to their kids about race. That is especially true for parents of white children.
My family (intentionally) lives in a small New England town where I experience a deep sense of community and belonging. I love it here. On a typical walk, I pass more affirming yard signs than I do people and dogs.
Yet being in this town, with its loving and supportive community, has not spared my biracial, Black-presenting daughter from the stings of racism and bias. Stings that are all too familiar to me as a Black woman who grew up in the deep South in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Our town is not perfect. It is, after all, embedded within these racialised United States. And my daughter has had several racially biased encounters here. This often surprises my white friends. Which, in turn, surprises me.
Research shows that white children show........