Talking to Kids about Racism, Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion Part 1: 8 Tools for your Conversation Toolkit
By Robin Matthews-Kanhai
Talking to kids about racism, equity and inclusion is layered for me: I’m a bi-racial woman from the prairies, born to a Caribbean father and 3rd generation English white mother. I’m a sister to three Cree/Caribbean brothers, another bi-racial brother of a similar racial mix to me and two white siblings. I am also the stepdaughter of a residential school survivor.
My feelings about all of this and my relationship to my own racialized self are complex, fluid and coloured by many experiences tied to colonialism.
This makes being married to a white man of Scandinavian descent and having three children of three different shades a trip! I sometimes wonder if it would feel simpler if I grew up with a racialized community of my own to ground me to give me a stronger sense of belonging but that’s not my story.
I grew up with a white mom and stepfather, in an almost exclusively white rural community and felt curious, sometimes cold eyes on me whenever I entered a room or place of business. I saw my father a weekend each month and he worked almost exclusively in Indigenous communities, so I often joined a van or bus of Indigenous kids traveling for sports for the weekend and saw how the world around them responded to them.
Very early, I became aware of my race, my father’s race, and the race of his wife and students. I understood early that race makes people behave or react in nuanced ways. My appearance granted benefits in some cases and was dangerous for me in others.
I had kids in my mid 30s to my mid 40s so I had many years of life behind me that led to decisions around race and parenting: my kids would be schooled in the most racially and socio-economically diverse way I could come by.
I had the privilege to weigh options of private schools and programs but none of them seemed to meet that criterion. I also wanted them to learn a second language in school and others after, to help make their world feel as big as possible. I wanted them to be raised in a community where they would have daily encounters with others that looked like them and the richness of a community with other racialized people from many places in the world. I wanted many different spheres of influence and peer groups for each of them so that something going poorly in one did not have to feel life-defining. This meant choosing to raise our kids in an urban environment despite me being raised rural.
What all this amounts to is so much more than just talking to my kids about race as so many are trying to do these days. It means daily experiences that are all excellent triggers for conversations about race, and an intentionally cultivated anti-racist environment. And as someone who thoroughly believes there is no such thing as NOT talking about politics if you are a justice seeker for all, we get into it almost daily in some way.
We talk A LOT. About everything.
I’m up in their business and they’re in mine. We ask lots of questions as parents and answer anything asked of us even when the topics feel challenging.
We have a baby and the older two are eight and six years old. The youngest is blonde and blue eyed and has me researching the most effective sunscreen and seeking out SPF clothing. The middle one has light brown hair, dark brown/black eyes and looks racialized in the summer but is white-passing otherwise. The eldest has dark brown hair, nearly black eyes and is as dark as me in the winter and often darker in the summer.
I don’t have a one-size fits all approach. My thinking has been that if they’re all to understand who they are in the world and how to use their influence and super-powers for equity, they’ll have to learn different skills to achieve that outcome but be grounded in some common understandings.
Here are 8 tools for our anti-racism and pro-inclusion parenting toolkit:
Privilege is Real (and it’s not fair)
We talk to them about our privilege every day in conversation. We acknowledge and explore how privilege might look different for each of them with their melanin differences, because the world messed up on fairness a long time ago and we’re still dealing with it.
Diversity is Intersectional
We ground them all in the commonality that they are Guyanese-Canadian and Scandinavian-Canadian, something cultural for them all to be proud of. We also have discussions about pronouns, keeping the door open to fluidity. We talk about diverse abilities and about consent and violence (no “boys will be boys” talk or toy guns at home). And here are many conversations about physical and emotional boundaries. I truly believe you cannot discuss race effectively without these pieces. There is too much overlap and intersectionality to discuss it alone.
Adults Don’t Always Know More Than Kids
We talk about adults and people of authority being human and humans being flawed. We say they are right about some things and are wrong about others. At the risk of producing pretentious children, we also talk to them about being teachers to adults who try to present them with a world that is less fair or more close-minded than the one they learn about at home. We often say, “that sounds like an opportunity to teach them what you know to be true…”. We practice how to react and respond to possible opinions or perspectives they’ll encounter.
Self-Esteem and Confidence Matter
We try, and I say try, because as parents we have our own issues and anxieties and fail often…but we TRY to make our home a place of confidence building. The world will knock them down and modesty will be learned through many experiences, but we are here to build them up, to be on their side. I am especially conscious of this with my brownest child.
Shame Has No Place
We teach them that there is nothing they do that brings us shame. And explain that nothing in the world is so defined as starkly as good vs. bad. Everything has a context and environment that it happens in. We find this helps when terrible things occur in the world, and we need to discuss traumatic or frightening themes.
Respect for All Living Things
We teach respect of non-human life, plants, and bugs because respect for all people is grounded in respect for the Earth and all its elements and inhabitants. No killing spiders at our house, much to the chagrin of my husband.
Sometimes People Are Just Wrong
We are straight up about tricky people, and unkind people and people who flat out have it wrong. We are also clear, there is a lot of ignorance out there. And we point it out when we see it, hoping that they will be able to spot those that spew it as they encounter it, so they do not internalize racism and other isms, and instead can name it.
Social Media Impact (the messages that shape us)
We strictly monitor media intake (also a privilege we have with our time). The kids currently don’t have any unfettered access to TV, streaming, video games, etc. Library rented DVDs are big in our home.
We acknowledge our own racism and try to model curiosity, being open to discovering in what ways they can learn and grow. There is so much to think about, and our family is still learning, but we’re sharing our experience in case our story can benefit you.
P.S.
If you are curious to learn more, watch for my second part of this post where I share some of our principles for healthy conversations about racism, equity, diversity and inclusion with our kids – coming soon!
About Robin Matthews-Kanhai:
A leader in financial operations, always striving for a more equitable financial system. A lifelong student of political studies and advocate for anti-oppressive practice, equity, and liberation. Mom of 3 little humans, family matriarch in training, voracious audiobook and puzzle consumer, design and DIY dabbler.