Conversations with my four-year-old about racism

Conversations with my four-year-old about racism

by guest blogger Rhea St. Julien I’ve been with my husband, who is Black, for 15 years, but I have been White all my life. I still get things wrong, I still miss racist stuff, and I still don’t always…

“One Hundred Years of Lynching:” Coming to Terms With America’s Violent Past

“One Hundred Years of Lynching:” Coming to Terms With America’s Violent Past

by guest blogger Pedro A. Noguera, Ph. D When I moved back to NY in 2000, one of the first things I did with my children was to take them to visit the Museum of Natural History. I had always enjoyed…

The Third Little Pig: A lesson on wealth redistribution

The Third Little Pig: A lesson on wealth redistribution

by Sachi Feris While I was in Argentina recently, I found a pop-up version of “The Three Little Pigs” in Spanish, which I purchased and quickly became one of my son’s favorite books. After about 100 readings, literally, it occurred…

How (and why) I introduced gender identity to my 3-year-old son

by guest blogger Shannon Cofrin Gaggero My husband and I are striving to raise our children outside the confines of traditional gender norms. We are not raising our kids without gender influences altogether, but we are actively trying to create space…

Why I want to read books with protagonists of color to my White son

Why I want to read books with protagonists of color to my White son

by guest blogger Suzanne Feinspan I loved reading as a kid. Weekly trips to the library and monthly ones to the bookstore were some of the highlights of my childhood.  I still have a strong sentimental attachment to many of…

Leo Lionni's "A Color of his Own": Cross-race versus same-race spaces

Leo Lionni’s “A Color of his Own”: Cross-race versus same-race spaces

by Sachi Feris As a long-time reader of Leo Lionni, it surprised me that Google searches of Lionni’s books did not yield lessons plans explicitly discussing race, since many of his books speak to themes of racial identity and the…

Politics Aside: My brown-skinned, Jewish American son reacts to Donald Trump

by guest blogger Janet Alperstein, Ph.D Regardless of your political affiliation, I hope you will take a moment to read about how a young Jewish American and Latino boy is experiencing the 2016 presidential, frequently as a result of what…

Why it is my job to explain White privilege to my almost four-year-old

Why it is my job to explain White privilege to my almost four-year-old

by Sachi Feris A couple of months ago, I was singing a bedtime song to my daughter and she interrupted with, “Mamma, sometimes in the morning when I wake up my pillow is wet.” It was a statement with the…

Taking off my racial color-blind lens

Taking off my racial color-blind lens

by guest blogger Kelly Cutler Let’s be honest, what does a White woman like myself know about raising race conscious children?! I was raised in predominantly White, middle-class suburb with a culture that emphasized meritocracy, the idea that individuals succeed…

My son sees segregation…what does that mean for a race conscious parent?

by guest blogger Julie Roberts-Phung This post is 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…