Kid Race Conversations: Maneuvering Whiteness in Critical Race Parenting

• In Event: Critical Race Parenting: Teaching for Our Children's Lives and Humanity

Abstract

White parents rarely discuss race with their children (Vittrup and Holden, 2011), and if they do, they avoid discussing racism and instead employ a colorblind philosophy (Bonilla-Silva, 2013), watering down race to simple skin color differences that ignore the power and privilege that comes with whiteness. Yet, white children notice race, and are socialized into our white supremacist society (Thandeka, 1999). However, this nihilistic assessment is not the only path available to anti-racist white parents. This theoretical paper offers insights into a white mother’s conversations with her young child about race and racism as well as her own self-reflective struggles managing whiteness and doubts around how she presents and translates topics of race and racism to her child and interprets his initial comments and questions on race and racism.

This theoretical piece will employ Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS), which seeks to expose and deconstruct white supremacy in sociopolitical systems and discourse (Allen, 2004; Leonardo, 2013). The paper will also draw on Critical Race Theory (CRT), to further the discussion of Critical Race Parenting (CRP) (Matias & Montoya, 2015), which holds the principles of CRT (e.g., the permanence of racism, interest convergence, and counterstorytelling) (Bell, 1992) and applies them to family discussions and education around race and racism. CWS and CRP will be used to analyze an autoethnography of “radical specificity” (Sotirin, 2010). In that, the author will analyze her autoethnographic mother-writing and conversations as a white mother with her mixed race child who looks white as both an illustration of what to do and what not to do, in navigating the complexities of discussing race and racism with preschool children.

The significance of this piece lies not only in the analysis of the parent/child conversations and parent autoethnography offering pilot information for further study, but also in its providing a clear example of parent/child conversations on race and racism that can serve to inform other anti-racist parents seeking to have these discussions with their own children.

Author

• Naomi Nishi, University of Colorado - Denver