What do we teach our kids when we stay silent?
Demonstrators gather at the corner of 14th and U streets in Washington, Friday, May 29. Evan Vucci/AP
Ed:Future Saturday posts are always for “Future of Learning Top Reads.” Tomorrow you’ll see the regular, “school” related recommended reads.
Today, though, there is another kind of “Future of Learning” read we need to share.
This past week saw the murder of George Floyd, a black man, and the threat of violence against Christian Cooper, another black man.
This will keep happening until white folks accept responsibility for behaving in antiracist ways. It is not enough to avoid being racist. When we remain silent in the face of racism, we are teaching our kids that racism is acceptable.
So this week’s official “Future of Learning Top Read” is:
“How do I make sure I'm not raising the next Amy Cooper?” by Jennifer Harvey, on CNN.com
“White silence is a kind of race talk, of course, in a nation that is at once very diverse, deeply segregated and structurally organized as a white racial hierarchy.
“And silence has many forms.
“Sometimes it sounds like ‘everybody's equal.’ Sometimes we white parents tell our kids, ‘be colorblind.’ Sometimes we even say, ‘celebrate diversity!’ (We say this while failing to notice we're expecting children to be magically immune from the same racism-induced tensions that get in the way of white adults successfully navigating diversity and sustaining interracial relationships). […]
“But something insidious happens when white families fail to engage in race-conscious, antiracist-committed parenting: The racist culture in which all of our lives are embedded teaches white youth all they need to know in our stead. […]
“When we don't break white silence with ongoing and explicit teaching about race and racism, and active and persistent modeling of antiracism, we end up raising the Amy Coopers of the next generation.”
Why does this matter to the future of learning?
The Future of Learning is Antiracist.
As the article goes on to say, “We can learn to choose antiracism. […] Antiracism never accidentally shows up.”
How well versed are you in what it means to be antiracist?
Don’t know where to start with your kids? Start here.
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