That's Racist: Critical Reflection on an Emergent Antiracist Curriculum

• In Event: Race, Racism, Overlooked

Abstract

Currently, many families and educators are considering enactment of antiracist curricula in homes and early education contexts. In this paper, I use critical discourse analysis to examine curricular conversations from the attempted antiracist home curriculum I, a white professor of early childhood education, enacted in my home. The emergent antiracist curriculum examined here centers around my white children’s use of the popular phrase, That’s racist. I find that while my children became better able to identify racism embedded in texts, the curriculum fell short of helping them understand systemic racism. I conclude my children’s learning was mediated by the critical racial literacy of myself and my husband, curricular texts, and the limitations of the cultural context of early childhood education.

Author

• Rhianna K. Thomas, New Mexico State University