Book Review: "Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America" by Jennifer Harvey

You are a parent of white kids in these United States. And you are concerned about the racial injustice you see every day on the news, in social media... or maybe on your block, or on your city streets, or in the school your children attend.

In fact, it breaks your heart, and you want to do something about it. You want things to be better. You want to be a good ally for racial justice, and to raise children who are without prejudice, who treat all people kindly and fairly and who may have some black friends, some Latino/a friends... kids who are comfortable around all kinds of people, who give everybody a chance.

But how do you do that, exactly? You could try a couple of approaches that have gained traction across the years. For example, you could say to your kids (and try to model for them), "I just don't see race. I look at people, and say, 'You are a child  of God,' or 'You are my brother, you are my sister. I just don't see you as a different race.'"

Or, you could prioritize making diversity a part of your family's life. You could advocate for a strong diversity-shaped curriculum at your kids' school (or even choose a school with that requirement). You could seek out opportunities for your kids to be on teams or in clubs or in activities where there are kids of many different backgrounds, where they will have opportunities to learn, to play, to work, to grow alongside kids of color.

You could try either of these approaches, but you are likely to learn that they have only the most limited effectiveness. Despite your best efforts there still comes a time, even after everyone's played T-ball together, or taken dance together, or been in the classroom together, when the kids in the lunchroom self-segregate into tables along racial lines.

You would learn that it's not enough.

Writer, speaker, and Drake University professor Jennifer Harvey makes this case emphatically (backed by ample research) in her new book, Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America (Abingdon Press). But she doesn't leave us there. Instead Harvey offers an approach she calls race-conscious parenting.

Race-Conscious Parenting

Harvey's articulation of her approach begins with a sobering reminder:

Parents of Black, Latino/a and other children of color have to teach their children about race as a basic matter of their children's well-being and survival, usually from very young ages... 

In countless day-to-day life moments, parents of children of color make difficult choices about when, what, and how much to say. They consider how to be effective in making their children aware of US racial realities and dangers, while simultaneously nurturing their children's emotional resilience and a healthy sense of racial identity... 

Such nuanced, complex, and challenging conversations are a fundamental necessity of parenting children of color. No obvious parallels exist for white families. As a result, racial conversations in white families tend to be one-dimensional. (pp. 7-8)

Race-conscious parenting offers a corrective to one-dimensional conversations by encouraging parents to acknowledge, name, discuss, and otherwise engage racial difference--and racial justice--with children. Race-conscious parenting goes beyond approaches that attempt to teach children *how not to be racist* (an approach that reduces racism to individual actions and intentions). Instead, this model encourages parents to recognize and name for kids the structures and systems which operate continuously to privilege our white racial group.

Here's the real beauty of this book: It breaks down this enormous and potentially overwhelming task for us in such a way that it feels doable. Not easy, but doable. In Harvey, the reader hears the wise and learned voice of a scholar and teacher with decades of experience on the front lines of racial justice activism. We also hear the sensible, gentle voice of a mom who has already begun this vulnerable and life-changing process with her own children. Harvey cheers the reader on. She encourages us. She wants us to know that we don't have to have all the answers in order to begin having the conversations.

Raising White Kids is organized thematically, and is filled with stories and anecdotes designed to help us to see how such conversations can begin and develop at different ages and in different contexts. Harvey doesn't hesitate to share her own hesitation, and the times when she has second-guessed herself. She outlines with clarity and sensitivity the process of racial identity development in children, and illuminates the interplay between a child's inner life and and external environment. Harvey confronts the challenge of sharing hard truths with white children about whiteness... its history, its legacy, and the ways in which, even when we don't want to be, we white people are part of the problem. She addresses questions such as: How do we have age-appropriate conversations with our kids about the incidents of racial violence we hear about in the news? Do we take them to protests on behalf of racial justice? How can we help our white kids to name, acknowledge, and look more deeply into their own experiences of racism? What does healthy white racial identity look like? Harvey even closes each chapter with a one- or two-page summary of main points-- "takeaways" from the topics addressed. These make the book extraordinarily user-friendly.

Near the end of the Raising White Kids, Harvey shares a personal story about asking her children whether they wanted to participate in a protest responding to two recent incidents of black men being killed by police. She had already been present with her kids when they heard a news story about the shootings; she had also engaged them in some conversations about that story. When she asked about the protest, her kids quickly responded that they wanted to take part, and they wanted to make signs to carry.

Harvey describes the experience of seeing the sign made by her daughter H. (she was seven at the time). It said:

"Black Lives Mater. They mater the same as white. Stop killing them."

Then, below all of this script she had written the names of people in her life that she loves. Her sign listed them out this way:

"People that are Blak are: t. [her cousin] a. [her cousin] tobi [her aunt]." 

Harvey continues,

I didn't only feel my breath catch when I took in this scene, I felt my heart break as well...

What I re-learned and re-membered from that gorgeous and devastating sign and from witnessing firsthand my daughter's ability to connect the dots for herself was that these are not times in which any of us can dare live without a broken heart. Given the days we live in, if our hearts are not broken we've already lost a core part of our humanity. (p. 254)

Harvey encourages us to let our hearts break, and to be moved to become part of the resistance that is a natural outgrowth of all real efforts to educate and engage in anti-racism. Her book offers no easy answers, but is a beautifully written and deeply human tool to aid and encourage us as we begin.

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I have a copy of this marvelous book for one of my readers! If you would like a copy, please leave a comment here on the blog (not on Facebook). I'll have a drawing next Wednesday, March 7. Thanks for reading!