Newsweek cover: "Is Your Baby Racist?"

[AspenRose]

So I saw this while at the doctor's office last week. (It looks like having a black president is bringing up more than conversations about the First Lady's hair.)


http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/nurtureshock/archive/2009/09/06/nurtureshock-cover-story-for-newsweek-is-your-baby-racist.aspx


There is a new book out called NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children

http://www.amazon.com/NurtureShock-New-Thinking-About-Children/dp/0446504122/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252672188&sr=8-1

and the cover story in Newsweek is from this book.

I scanned the article and the basic gist I got from it was:

1. According to their studies, babies can tell the difference between colors as early as 6 months old, but do not ascribe meaning to the differences

2. The more diverse an area a child grows up in, the more likely they will self-segregate

3. White parents are more likely to NOT talk to their kids about race than black parents

4. White parents are more likely to not point out differences in races to children in the hopes it will make them "color blind"

5. Children's window of opportunity for learning to be more inclusive of others closes around 3rd grade

6. The best way to teach children about differences in races is to emulate how we teach them about differences in gender (e.g. "Women can be doctors/lawyers/scientists and can be as good in the field as men.")

7. Friendships formed across racial lines are usually dependent on common activities (e.g. sports and extracurricular activities), and once those activities are no longer pursued by either party, the friendships dissolve.


These are all theories, and I don't know how much of it I buy, but if you get a chance to see the article or read it online, share your thoughts. I am also frustrated (as a parent in an interracial marriage) that they focus solely on the black/white dichotomy and don't bring other backgrounds into the mix.

[kwassa]

1. Newsweek loves sensationalist cover titles

It is a long complicated article, but I don't necessarily agree with the conclusions. I do agree that many if not most white parents don't talk to their children about race, because they don't know the racial issues themselves, by and large. As adults, they've never had real discussions of racial issues with anyone of color, just the much safer and more abstract discussions about equality. They can't teach their kids what they don't know.

I disagree with the self-segregation in a diverse environment, unless it is only black and white Americans and not people of other ethnic diversity. This article also fails to note that most adults are segregated socially, if not in the workplace, so what the kids do reflects to some degree what the parents do.

The lines are much fuzzier in modern urban American where literally all the ethnicities in the world are together in the same schools. It is common locally to have children from as many as 90 different nations in a single school. I see more multi-ethnic friendship groups among teens than I've ever seen, but still there is a lot of social segregation there, too, though some of that may dependent on class as well as race.

[Number23]

2. The point that children in racially diverse environments are more likely to self-segregate is odd

If you're in a racially homogeneous environment, there would be no need to self-segregate. Duh, Newsweek. :)

And they do divide everything by black and white and like AspenRose, I would have liked to have seen some interracial couples included as well.

But I'm not bothered by that exclusion too much because I still believe that even if there is only one black parent involved, the rules about black parents being much more likely to discuss race and the impacts of racism still apply. The white parent will catch up, they'll have to. Because a half black child will be viewed by much of the world as black, no matter how many clueless and confused white people on DU claim otherwise.

[Brewman_Jax]

3. After reading the article

A lot of the conclusions go back to the old adage that racism has to be taught. In a racial caste society where white is the default, society and media do the job, the parents don't have to. I was surprised at how early the racial conditioning begins and how deeply it went, highlighted in the latter part of the article with the 1st-grade class reading of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas".

As noted above, most white parents don't talk about race because they can't. It's a topic they don't have to deal with except in the abstract. In this case, racism has to be un-taught.

As always, the comments section always show how far we haven't come.