Raising Race Conscious Children

Welcome to Raising Race Conscious Children, a resource to support adults who are trying to talk about race with young children. The goals of these conversations are to dismantle the color-blind framework and prepare young people to work toward racial justice. If we commit to collectively trying to talk about race with young children, we can lean on one another for support as we, together, envision a world where we actively challenge racism each and every day. Many of the blog's posts are geared toward White people but a community of guest bloggers represent diverse backgrounds and the strategies discussed may be helpful for all.

It starts one conversation at a time.

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Preparing children for critical race consciousness: A resource for parents and teachers

by guest blogger Dr. Elford Rawls-Dill, PhD  I can still remember reading the words penned by Paulo Freire, “…No one is born fully-formed: it is through self-experience in the world that we become what we are.” I first read these…

De-segregation is not enough: Why building strong, integrated schools matters

by Sahba Rohani At Community Roots Charter School in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, where I work as the director of community development, we have ten years of experience running a purposefully integrated school. That’s been possible for a few reasons. Home…

Paul Kivel's Suggestions for White Racial Justice Parenting

by guest blogger Paul Kivel Do you talk about racism where you live? Talking about racism is not easy for most of us to do. Few of us grew up in homes where racism or other difficult and emotional issues…

Race conscious talk as a daily practice: A day with my 11-month old

by Sachi Feris This is an account of the daily opportunities I have to be race conscious versus “color blind” with my children. My 11-month-old baby loves ducks. So when he woke up fussy from a two-hour morning nap (on…

A Bed Time Routine for Black Lives Matter

by guest blogger Chris Crass With my heart breaking throughout the day, learning more and more about #‎KorrynGaines‬, the latest Black women, the 9th this year, murdered by the police, I began preparing for my kids’ bed time routines. I sat…

#FreedomNow with my four-year-old niece

by Danielle Morgan Feris To introduce myself: Sachi Feris of Raising Race Conscious Children is my sister. I love her children, my four-year-old niece and ten-month-old nephew, more than anything. I am grateful that I get to help raise my niece…

The Value of Black Bodies: talking with my Black son about race based violence

by Lori Taliaferro Riddick This past weekend my family watched the start of NBA free agency, when NBA players choose their teams and as players moved to new cities, we watched fans display their indignation by burning jerseys. We have…

Telling my White four-year-old about Alton Sterling and Philando Castile

by Sachi Feris The past 24-hours have been wrought with power struggles between me and my four-year-old, leading to emotions running high for both of us. In response to this, we have been brainstorming strategies for dealing with emotions of…

Dissent is patriotic: July 4th and my four-year-old

by Sachi Feris In planning a special sleepover night in which my four-year-old would stay up late at my mom’s to watch Macy’s fireworks, I asked my daughter: “Do you know want to know what this July 4th fireworks celebration is…

Do you talk about race (and additional identity-markers) and justice with the young people in your lives? Raising Race Conscious Children is expanding our community of guest bloggers! Raising Race Conscious Children’s goal is to provide models for how to talk…