Protect our Brown and Black kids!

A week ago I shared a powerful presentation with you by Thomas Rudd on implicit bias in education and the negative consequences. This week I want to share a solution that we can all implement: Racial Socialization.

Racial socialization has been defined as "the developmental processes by which children acquire the behaviors, perceptions, values, and attitudes of an ethnic group, and come to see themselves and others as members of the group". The existing literature conceptualizes racial socialization as having multiple dimensions. Researchers have identified five dimensions that commonly appear in the racial socialization literature: cultural socialization, preparation for bias, promotion of mistrust, egalitarianism, and other. Cultural socialization refers to parenting practices that teach children about their racial history or heritage and is sometimes referred to as pride development. Preparation for bias refers to parenting practices focused on preparing children to be aware of, and cope with, discrimination - wikipedia

Ten Steps to Racial Socialization:
1.  Immerse your children in positive images of people that look like them. I recommend as much diversity as possible, however, there are more positive images of Asian and White people available and not as many for Hispanic, Latino, Black, and African American people. Think about using (library or purchase) books with diverse characters like the one's written by Zora Neale Hurston, Patricia McKissack, Desmond Rochfort, & Jose Luis-Orozco. Think about ethnic art, and music. This should all be celebrated.

2. Identify mentors and use them. What ever stage in life you have reached, it is a blessing. Share your gifts with other children and allow others to share their gifts/time/talents with your children. Of course, anyone who has access to your child needs to be supervised and screened. Are you in a sorority? Attend a church? Still in touch with college friends or professors? Those are all natural mentors. It is important that they are positive and that the majority of them looks like your child. Mentoring denotes a relationship that grows over time. For it to be effective there must be regular contact (phone, email, text, face-time, Skype).

3. Take your child to visit museums and cultural events that highlight their culture(s).

4. Expose them to positive role models that look like them. Your dentist, physician, pastor, teacher, post man can be positive role models. I am not saying they all need to look like your child BUT I am saying that a good number of the role models need to look like your child. We want more than professional athletes, reality TV stars, and rappers as role models. As a matter of a fact, the role models you expose them to and their occupations will create a vision for your child of what they can or cannot do. If they cannot see themselves doing it, they probably won't. If your child is Latino and has never seen a Latino female and male dentist, doctor or lawyer, I would work on that ASAP. Along the same lines, do not allow them to watch stereotypical depictions of people that look like them either.

5. Stop being so negative and hard on people. It is poor role modeling. If you do not have anything nice to say, be quiet. If it is an opportunity to talk about choices fine but be ware that many people have poor self-concept that have had to assimilate and acculturate into mainstream America (White-middle class value system). You will know if you have a positive self concept if you can identify strengths in your own culture and the cultures of others. If you believe that any one is superior, there may be some issues. I recommend counseling.

6. READ, read, read. If you are the parent of a black or Latino/Hispanic male it is critical that you read parenting books. Your parenting is not any less than any other group BUT your child is at greater risk, due to discrimination and implicit bias, of failure. Most of this stuff (bias) is unconscious and people do not even know that they do it. You need to know it happens. Call it out! Don't confront alone. Get at least 5 others to join you (in-person or in writing). It is not your child's imagination. They most likely aren't trying to get out of anything and you aren't delusional. Racism is real and Black men and boys are the largest target. Read books by Victor Rios, Jawanza Kunjifu, Gloria Billings, Baruti Kafele and any others you can get your hand on to stay informed.

7. Read the President's new initiative for Black children. Find out what your district and school are going to do about it.

8. If the history of slavery is shared, balance it out with information on achievements. There is plenty that happened before slavery. Black people were and still are, yes I visited Ile Ife, Nigeria and Accra Ghana recently, Kings and Queens. Latinos too have a great history, including helping to find Los Angeles as we know it today. Check out books on achievements. There are plenty. Patricia McKissack has published more than 20.

9. Never stop learning. Your children will do at least what you do/did. If you ONLY get a high school diploma, they MAY attend school for one year past high school. Even if formal education is out of your reach, let them see you READING books, writing, taking classes.

10. Stay informed. No entire group of people are evil. No entire group of people are good. YOU should not trust the educational system. You should be friendly, forgiving, and cooperative (on certain things) but keep it real. Far too many Black and Brown children are being failed by the school system. The government won't change it BUT we can.

COLLEGE is the goal, not high school graduation!