What I did when my son said, “that man looks like a monkey!” on a public bus
by guest blogger Julie Roberts-Phung
This post is being re-posted as part of a week-long series highlighting supporters of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), both in their parenting of race-conscious children and their activist work for racial justice. SURJ is a national network of groups and individuals organizing White people for racial justice. For more resources and information check out SURJ’s website.
I was on a public bus when my three-year-old excitedly said, “Look momma, that man looks like a monkey!”
I was embarrassed to see that he was pointing across at an African American man. I didn’t think that the man had heard my son though I assume another African American man next to us did. I am a White woman (Irish and Russian) and my son is Vietnamese and White.
In the moment, I was thinking a few things:
1) This is terrible.
2) I’m supposed to keep space open for my children to talk about race, and not shut them down (which could make them think it’s a bad thing, and keep them from coming to me with future questions). How do I give my son room to explore race (and not stop the conversation) while, at the same time, share the message I want to give him about race (without making any other possibilities seem “wrong”)?
3) There is a bus full of people looking at me. How do I also be a good ally? How do I support the people of color on the bus? How can I make sure this doesn’t feel like another moment that they face racism? How do I send the right message to my son, and to other White people watching?
In the moment, I said, “Why do you say that?” My son gestured to the man’s bushy beard/sideburns and said “He’s got hair on his face like a monkey.” Then I said, “I know you’re not a mean guy, but some people say that African American people look like monkeys to be mean. I know you like monkeys, and you’re not being mean, but some people do that.”
I think I was speaking a little louder than normal, and feeling a little anxious about making sure people heard that I was not letting that comment go unchecked. In the moment, I didn’t feel like I did a good job of handling this situation.
On the bus, it felt like I had to talk about race, and racism, and the history of people organizing for change all at once. And I felt like I had to talk about all of this on a bus in front of a completely diverse group of strangers.
After consulting with Raising Race Conscious Children, I was able to separate out different pieces. Since then, I’ve been trying to talk about race often, when we’re reading books, in the same way that when we talk to kids we say “look it’s a kitty, and it has stripes, and is soft.” I learned to say, “Look that’s a momma kissing that baby! The baby has light brown skin, straight black hair, and pretty almond shaped black eyes—some people call that Asian, like your Ba’noi (grandma) and your poppa, and who else is Asian?” It feels awkward sometimes to do this, but I am trying anyway.
I’ve also tried to say, “We don’t talk about people in public. It makes people feel bad.” I say that in general, even when the observation isn’t about race. When it is an observation about race, I try to say, “Oh, I’m glad you noticed that, remember we don’t talk about other people in public. Let’s talk more about this later.”
Lastly, we talk about when things aren’t fair, and what we can do to make them better. I think by having all of these building blocks, my family can put them together over time. Having a conversation about them all at once is too complicated and overwhelming.
Sometimes my son will say, “Stop saying that blah, blah, blah momma!” When I pile in too much and he doesn’t want to hear it, he stops me. I’ve realized that this is a conversation that happens over a long time, and that I’ll have lots of chances to try again.
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Julie Roberts-Phung is a long time community organizer turned consultant and coach, and a member of SURJ. Through her business, Empower Together, she coaches change-makers on a variety of topics, including leadership and career issues. Julie is mom to two children, a four-year-old and a one-year-old.
If you would like to find out more about joining parent activists through SURJ, please join the Showing Up For Racial Justice (SURJ) Families Facebook group or become a SURJ member.
Click here for more information on participating in a Raising Race Conscious Children interactive workshop/webinar or small group workshop series.
Ms. Roberts-Phung, could you clarify/expand on a few things here? I’m left with several questions:
You said that you were thinking, “This is terrible.” Was that only terrible because it was exposed? How, where, and from whom did your son learn that in the first place? Who all contributed to him being in the situation where he could learn that?
What is the “right message” that you want to send to your son and other white people?
You mention not talking about people in public, not in the context that talking about people that way is destructive, but only to do it covertly. What message is that sending?
What do you mean by “explore race?” What other possibilities do you not want to seem “wrong” (as you stated)?
Do those messages and actions support racism?
You don’t explicitly state that what happened is incorrect. At what point did your son have the message sent to him that what he did is incorrect? Since you don’t send that message, would that suggest that the message is that it is acceptable as long as such things are not expressed overtly? You just say that you don’t want people of color to “feel like another moment where they face racism,” even if that may indeed be what they are being facing. None of that sounds like you sincerely intend to help solve the problem of racism. It sounds more like you just don’t want to be exposed or perceived as a racist and want to be more refined. Not much else can be deduced based on what was written. If I’m misreading that, could you give some clarification?
Hi Rashnu, thanks for reading, and for the good questions. What I am hearing is that there is a concern that if we don’t send a strong, immediate message that racism is wrong, then we are perpetuating the problem. I’m also hearing that there’s a problem when white people want to appear like we’re not racist, and are more worried about that then actually not being racist. I agree!
I think what happened with my son is that he noticed an actual similarity between this man’s sideburns (and maybe skin color) and what he’d seen of monkeys. He didn’t know that Black & Asian people being called a “monkey” has a racist history – lots of people affectionately call kids “monkeys” and he had no way of knowing that this term was connected to racism without being told so.
This incident on the bus was a wake up call for me, I hadn’t been talking about race, or racism at home before this. I reached out to Sachi at Raising Race Conscious Children as a result because I knew that I didn’t want to rase a kid who thought it was ok to call Black people monkeys, but I didn’t know how to go about changing that. Now, after working with her and doing a lot more learning, about it, and after talking to my son about what racism means, I could more explicitly say “I know you’re not a mean guy, & that you like monkeys, but you should know that some people call Black people monkeys to be racist, and we don’t do that. Our job is to make things more fair.”
A theme you brought up that’s important to me, is that I do think white progressives in particular spend a lot of time being worried about appearing racist, and that this actually shuts down opportunities for us to talk about racism, learn and make things more just, for ourselves and others. Frankly, I find it helpful to accept that even though I really value equity and difference, I have implicit biases that have racist impacts, and that it’s more important to learn from that and interrupt them than try to pretend that they don’t exist. (See the Salon like at the bottom for a recent roundup of ways that white people are more racist than we think).
What I want for my child is a chance to talk about race, ask questions that might not make sense, or that might be cringeworthy in public. He’s 4. He might not get it all right immediately. I’m in my late 30s, and I still get things wrong. So I want a private space where he can talk openly and explore the unspoken context behind race and racism that we as adults have learned implicitly over time, without that conversation triggering other people of color. Since he’s Asian and white, he’s going to be on the receiving end of racist messages too, and he needs space to talk about and figure out all of this, which is hard in public.
I don’t want to send him the message that we don’t talk about race, or make him afraid to say something about it, or ask a question, because he gets the sense that it is shameful. So what I’ve learned from Raising Race Conscious children is that when race comes up, it’s a teachable moment that we want to encourage. “Ooh, you just brought up some important topics, let’s talk more about that later!” I will take the full conversation to a private setting, because it can and does have an impact on other people that is not nice, but I don’t want to shut the conversation down.
Lastly, I think adults could use more openness in talking about race too, and while it’s important to be mindful of the impact that we have on people of color, it’s often white people I notice calling out other white people and shutting them down when they do something wrong on race. People rarely learn and change from that approach. Instead of yelling “racist!” and shutting down the conversation, I like this approach to “Call In Culture.” http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/a-note-on-call-out-culture Asam Ahmad points out “calling in means speaking privately with an individual who has done some wrong, in order to address the behavior without making a spectacle of the address itself.”
I hope that answered your questions. It was a good chance for me to think out loud about things I’ve been wrestling with.
Here’s that article about bias and racism I mentioned. Don’t think you’re racist/sexist/homophobic? Think again: http://www.salon.com/2015/03/04/10_ways_white_people_are_more_racist_than_they_realize_partner/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
Best,
Julie
I think the best way to forget all these things is just to have a broader group of friends , not just talking about it, it’s almost distancing, for example I play football and I’m the only white guy…put yourself in situations where you are the minority, try to join a club or something, your son would gain a lot, too. Oh and you handled the bus thing fine, most people would just be thinking poor you! Lol. You seem like a lovely person 😉
My two year old said the same thing about a black man in the supermarket line. It was quite awkward! Thats how I found this website, to see how others handled it. I cant really call my two year old racist. but I just said “thats not very nice” and tried to distract her.