[Image description: Illustration from ‘Not Quite Snow White’ by Ashley Franklin and Ebony Glenn. A white child whispers into the ear of an East-Asian child as they look at Tameika, a Black girl. Tameika looks uncomfortable.]

In part 1 of this series on anti-racism for kids, we unpacked colorblind fallacies and discussed how refusing to acknowledge racial diversity further stigmatizes kids of color. With this collection, we teach kids why we must be mindful of social power in anti-racism work.

Reverse racism isn’t a thing. Stop trying to make reverse racism a thing.

Racism, like all -isms, only exists within a hierarchy of social power.

We overlook how social power plays into systemic discrimination because when we have power, we breathe it like air. It’s completely invisible. Only the folks who don’t have the same power we do – those who struggle to breathe – can help us to recognize it by telling their stories.

Training our kids to see invisible power structures requires we recognize it in our daily lives.

Racism is not just discrimination between races. But that’s really hard to mentally grasp, so here, let’s try this…

(CONTENT WARNING FOR CHILD ABUSE)

If my five year old punches me in the stomach, I’m allowed to get upset.

Disrespectful! Unacceptable disobedience! How dare!

Even if I’m physically hurt, I’m still the one with control in this relationship. This flurry of tiny fists does not make me feel threatened or unsafe. I’m not afraid my 5-year-old will destroy my life. I’m not in any danger.

In our society, we adults have not just physical power over children – but also social power. All things being equal, a five-year old who shares the same privileges and social status as me can’t do me much harm.

Now reverse it. Let’s imagine I let loose and punch that kid 5-year-old right in their adorable little face.

Because of my size, I can physically overwhelm them and steal any sense of autonomous safety and control without their consent. (That loss of control – that’s the stuff complex trauma is made of, by the way.)  Even when we equalize physical power in this situation, I’ve got more options. As teens, my kids will outweigh and overshadow me – but I still hold the authority.

But there’s also the impact of what happens when someone with power over you hurts you. I don’t just have personal authority over my kids. I have the privileges that come with adulthood. People trust my word over a child’s. I have connections, cash, and know how to work the system in a way a 5-year-old survivor of violence does not.

Long after their wounds have healed, this encounter will reverberate as an ongoing potential threat so long as I maintain power over them.

How we use intimidation to maintain power.

From the moment I hit my child – they will live with the understanding that I could use my larger physical mass, my social ties, and all the tools within my reach to hurt them. Whether they know it consciously or not, they must live with caution – knowing that I have the power to destroy them on a whim.

And yet – we don’t call an adult’s violence or disobedience toward a child ‘disrespectful.’ We call it discipline.

The punishments we meter to kids are manufactured consequences designed to maintain our societal norms. Adults controlling children through intimidation upholds our social structure. Which is why corporal punishment is still socially acceptable, particularly among families who believe there should be a social hierarchy.

Even though I don’t hit my kids, I am raising my kids in a culture of adult supremacy. I benefit from it at a cost to them – their freedom, and their sense of safety.

So when I raise my voice, and my kids flinch, telling them ‘I’m one of the good non-hitting parents’ dismisses a valid fear they have every right to feel. Telling them that they are ‘blowing things out of proportion‘ implies that I don’t recognize my power over them.

Refusing to acknowledge my power makes me even more dangerous because I’m oblivious to my power and how it impacts them.

Aaaand now that I’m writing this all out. I’m realizing I’ve never explicitly explained this to my kids. So I’m going to talk to them about it tonight.

See? We can all afford to do a little better. Like my light-skinned privilege, I didn’t create this power inequity and I don’t want it. But I still benefit from it and it’s my job to recognize when I’m doing it and empower my kids to protect themselves when I stumble into it.

Childism is not racism, but both share roots in paternalism

I’m using this physical example of child abuse to illustrate a tool we use to dismiss and ignore oppressed groups – paternalism. Paternalism is the idea that those with less power (people who are oppressed) are incapable of identifying what harms them, and those in power (oppressors) know best for those they’re abusing.

Adults of color, disabled adults, and so on for all grown-ups who hold less social power –  we are not children.

Paternalism also gives us a false belief that  equivocating two different oppressed groups to gain a foothold for one of them, is okay. It’s not okay. It’s fundamentally problematic to do what I did above.

Go back and read it again, noticing the subtle way I normalized whiteness/adults as the default, equivocating people of color as children. As the author of this article, this is an abuse of my power and authority and feeds into the thing we’re claiming to fight.

See how that works?

Equivocating two marginalized groups to empower group A disempowers group B. This perpetuates a pattern of behavior that reinforces a supremacist mindset, and makes group A easier to pulled down in the long run.

(That’s why our fights for equality need to be intersectional!)

Equivalencies reinforce oppression for folks who hold both of those identities. Which we know from…them explaining it to us. But unfortunately, we often don’t listen to multiply-marginalized folks – because we see them as multiply-incompetent! This is one way we use our paternalistic view towards oppressed groups to defang and dismiss calls for equity.

As a small Autistic Asian feminine person, I’m perceived as less competent than my tall white male partner. When I tell people the things they do are problematic, or even that they are hurting me relating to my race, gender, or disability – I’m brushed aside. When my partner says the exact same things – people believe him.

My ‘stop‘ to a white man using yellow face is dismissed because I’m some hysterical nagging lady. My partner’s ‘stop‘ is a command , a truth, to be considered and believed.

Centering voices of color is an act of civil disobedience

The trouble is, as intelligent and kind as my partner is – my partner cannot ever fully feel the impact of these -isms. His accomplice work will always lack the nuance and details I can provide as a disabled person of color with lived experience.

When folks in power look for ways to fight racism – we tend to look towards authority (a position that has been traditionally entrenched with whiteness for hundreds of years) for advice.

So long as we center white voices in anti-racism work, we’re just perpetuating racism.

White supremacy culture views disobedience toward authority as a negative violation that threatens to unravel civilization. In our authoritarian society, it’s acceptable for folks with entrenched power to do unfair things to maintain power. We justify this because it keeps people who matter safe and comfortable. The question is – who matters?

The idea that some humans can and should have power over others to preserve their safety and comfort – that those with less power should obey and suffer, is integral to supremacy.

This is the corruption of power. This is the mandate of heaven. This is westward expansion. This is purity culture. This is the culture of conquest. This is respectability politics. But this is not a universal human belief. White supremacy is not human nature, it’s just the one we’ve grown accustomed to due to white supremacy and colonialism.

Disobedience can be healthy – even necessary for a healthy human society. Disobedience is a check on broken systems and wide social gaps in power. Obedience and disobedience must be practiced side-by-side for a healthy human community. That’s why disobedience is the antidote to corruption in so many stories of faith and justice.

What if disobedience was seen for what it is – a symptom of a system that is not working for everyone? If you value inclusion and believe powerful people are responsible for protecting the weak – maybe noodle on that.

Teach your kids to speak up against abuse of power – including their own

Given that we’re unaware of our power and the ways others can perceive us as threatening – dealing with other humans can end up so terribly confusing. Because of this, we have to be mindful of it, and wield our power gently.

If we have no clue how systemic racism works within a social power structure, or even what racism is, we can’t teach our kids how to stop racist behavior.

If we’re unable to see the ways we are complicit in white supremacy (we all are – including me), we can’t teach our kids to dismantle systemic racism. Reverse-racism removes power from the equation of racism. This handy trick makes it easy to dismiss and silence people of color who speak up against racist action and systems of inequity.

It’s human nature for us to view those with less power as less capable. Which makes it easy to dismiss them. Which makes speaking truth to power very hard for folks with less power. Damn vicious cycle, is what it is!

This is what we call: Systemic racism. It’s a system, efficiently self-perpetuating. Gotta break it.

So how do we tell our kids of color that racial discrimination exists, and that it’s gonna be harder to do basic things like be humans in the world, simply because of our race? Without overwhelming them and sending them into a spiraling pile of tears and anxiety?

How do we teach white kids to shake off the instinct to dismiss people of color? Without provoking white fragility (more on that later) and inspiring them to justify negative treatment towards kids of color as inherently deserved?

How do we teach all our kids to disobey safely (and disobey we must!) when unjust systems are hurting people?

THE PLAN: Teach our kids to understand power inequity so they can name it, unpack it, and dismantle it when it happens in the real world. Let’s start these discussions with adorable picture books!

Teach our kids to be anti-racist as if lit from a fire below – bring power back to those who have had it denied. Social power is not a scarce or limited resource. We’re social animals who benefit when the community thrives – social power catches like fire. It grows. We lift up kids of color, and all kids rise.

You might also like: Children’s Books About Civil Disobedience & Disrupting Injustice

 *Milo’s Museum, *Auntie Luce’s Talking Paintings, Schomburg: The Man Who Built A Library

Ages 4-8

Ages 6-12

Ages 9+We originally included *Parker Looks Up in this list, but given the point of the book is respectful representation, after hearing from AICL on how this book stereotypes and denigrates Indigenous folks, that makes it an inappropriate pick to highlight responsible representation. Thanks Alyssa M. for catching that in the comments!

**Keepin’ it on the up & up: Zetta Elliott, the author of ‘Milo’s Museum,’ is one of the lovely supporters who keeps this post free and accessible for all – but I’ve been recommending her books since way before she joined our patreon community and have had plans to analyze how it differs from the tokenism in ‘Grandma in Blue with a Red Hat’ since way before we connected.

You might also like: All My Sons Deserve Respect! Complex Black Boys in Kidlit

Power Up: Disobey & Refuse To Submit

There aren’t many folks who break glass ceilings unscathed.

Our culture doesn’t do a great job at celebrating the  battle scars of social progress. So we’ve got to teach our kids to value disobedience and a certain type of scratchy disagreeableness.

Who is seen as a ‘natural‘ – a natural talent, a natural leader, a natural beauty? Who is pinged for advancement and handed power because they ‘seem like a good fit‘ through some ambiguous gut intuition (aka unconscious bias)? We all love easy-going folks. It’s much easier to be easy-going if things are already going your way and society is not designed to progress at your expense. Nasty cycle.

By nature of this work – folks who smash glass ceilings must be disobedient and non-compliant. They lend themselves to being perceived by those who want to maintain inequity as unlikable or even dangerous. All those harsh b*tches, dragon ladies, angry Black women, [insert your least favorite slur here] – labels used to denigrate women of color who refused to accept their place as subservient.

So you’re going to have a hard time finding books about unlikable heroes. American children’s authors love sanding off the rough parts before going to print, as if kids can’t accept imperfect heroes. Sneaky paternalism.

For now though, you’ll have to settle for glass-chippers who manage to ignore haters. Normalize rebellion. Teach girls and nonbinary kids of color that disagreeableness isn’t to be feared – oppression is. Teach kids to value feminine disobedience, to disambiguate goodness from polite quietness.

Also – avoid saviorism. If you’re reading a book about racism and a white protagonist helps a kid of color through racial injustice, that’s not centering people of color, that’s  disempowering POC as useless victims.

*Clara Lee And the Apple Pie Dream, *Not Quite Snow White, *Shining Star

Ages 7+

Ages 4-8

Ages 6-12

You might also like: Raising Rebels: Books For The Next Generation Of Kind & Brilliant Leaders

Power Up: Understand The Emotional Labor Of Being The Only One

Being the only one person of color in a sea of whiteness is exhausting. Even though kids can feel it, they need our help naming it, analyzing it, and understanding the roots of it. If we don’t help them through it, kids grow up internalizing racism, believing that those microaggressions and the discomfort and trauma of being targeted by racist behavior is inherent to them, rather than a symptom of an unhealthy society.

By targeting cultural associations instead of skin color, aggressors excuse racist behavior as not-racist because it’s about something like a name, a hijab, or targeting someone within their own racial group. This bigotry centers whiteness as the default, and anything deviant from whiteness as inferior.

Notice that the kids in these stories aren’t explicit targeted because of their race, but the aggression against them is still racist. Kids need to see that oppression expands beyond simply skin color or racial identity. We target Muslims because Islam is perceived as a threat to Eurocentric Christianity (it’s not.) We target Asian names because they don’t conform to Whiteness. We target darker-skinned people even within the same family or race because of colorism – tool to divide and conquer within each group of color that elevates proximity to whiteness.

Within each book – we see how external aggression from outsiders become internal thoughts that drive each child’s behavior. Individual acts of racial bias are just the tip of the glacier in white supremacy. Racism is a system that teaches kids of color to value whiteness. Racism exhausts a child of color’s ability to thrive because their minds and bodies are too busy orienting themselves around whiteness in order to stay safe in a racist society.

*The Proudest Blue, *Always Anjali, *Sulwe, *Where Are You From?

Ages 4-8

Ages 4-9

Keepin it on the up & up: Sailaja Joshi, the founder of Bharat Babies & publisher of Always Anjali, is one of the delightful patreon supporters who keeps my work open and accessible for all – but I’ve recommended Always Anjali before we connected.

You might also like: Circumventing White Fragility With Adorable Children’s Books: Bharat Babies

Stay Curious, Stand Brave & Believe People of Color

Join us to support these articles and help ignite a generation of kind & brilliant luminaries.

[Image description: Illustration from All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold & Suzanne Kaufman. Children of various races and faiths pointing to locations on a world map.]

If you’re nervous about talking about race with your kids, these books about racial diversity will give you an easy place to start destigmatizing difference & celebrating racial diversity.

It’s normal to get flustered when when our children talk about race. But if we let nervousness keep us silent and still, our fear becomes a weapon.

Growing up, I was told that discrimination would magically disappear if we stop acknowledging racial difference. All people are the same. Skin color doesn’t matter. Only bad people are racist. If we are all nice and well-behaved, racism will go away.

This is the fallacy of colorblind ideology. It’s a tool to keep us complicit in white supremacy. Don’t be a tool.

We must talk about race with young kids. Racism thrives in silence.

When we refuse to talk about race at an early age, children absorb our silence as shame. We’re taught that if we have nothing nice to say – say nothing at all. Well – white folks are aggressively silent when it comes to race! Does that mean that being Brown or Black is something to be ashamed of?

Kids pick up when we refuse to acknowledge racial difference – and how we treat people of color. Why are we surprised then, to see nice, well-behaved children reflect unconscious bias against people of color, then grow into adults who blame people of color for violence and harm against them?

Your child needs at least one adult to speak truth to BS about racial assumptions.

(It’s your job to be that adult.)

My White mother who openly talked about race from birth – and how society would perceive and treat me because of my multiracial heritage. She raised me to understand that discrimination against me was not my fault. Violence would happen to me because of my race, my gender, my class but it wasn’t caused by me – it was caused by white supremacy.

The Mominator refused to let me internalize the idea that I deserved racism. To do that, she first needed to acknowledge my race and the fact that I would have obstacles in life that white kids didn’t.

We can help our children understand racism – and empower them to work toward racial equality.

Raise kids of color to feel proud of their culture and their right to self-advocate.

Raise white kids to recognize their duty to stand up against injustice.

But first, you’ve gotta acknowledge that racial differences – even though they are an imaginary, human-imagined construct, exist as a real thing in our society, with real-life impact on real-life people.

Start by telling our kids that yes – we do see skin color and racial identities.

For folks who were never given space to talk about racism and discrimination as kids (or even racial diversity), it’s scary to start. We don’t want to say the wrong thing and mess it up.

No worries, we are going to start very gently with non-controversial, easygoing books that just show kids that racial diversity exists. In future collections, we’ll get into more emotionally loaded topics – like racial discrimination, racial privilege, colorism, and the subtle tools that uphold white supremacy, such as white fragility and respectability politics.

And this diversity is glorious.

You might also like: Waaay Before We Talk About Sex: Kids Books For Squeamish Parents

Acknowledge & Celebrating Racial Diversity

From two anonymous BFL members:

“My daughter came home saying she didn’t like her brown skin and wanted white skin and ‘bright’ hair instead. I’m looking for books that reinforce pride in who she is.”

“My white daughter said to me the other day, ‘I don’t like dark skin.’ I ran to the internet to research books like these.”

Yikes.

Use these comments as learning opportunities. Read these books to discuss biases they’ve absorbed during a quiet time home together (story time!) Encourage kids to speak bias aloud so they can hear how ridiculous it sounds, think about where it comes from, and realize how it develops.

When children point out that they like particular skin tones, body shapes, or hair textures more than others – don’t shout at them or insist they are wrong. Kids this age can’t untangle feelings from fact. Shaming them for a gut reaction is just going to get them to clam up.

Instead, help them untangle bias from fact on their own. Ask why they feel this way. Use in an open, non-judgemental tone. Keep asking questions to unpack these assumptions. We’re not here to tell them what to think, we’re here to model critical thinking about racial bias moving forward.

Discuss how all bodies are good bodies – how we differ, and what we have in common.

All Are Welcome, *Lovely, We’re Different, We’re The Same

Ages 4-7

Ages 2+

Ages 2-5

You might also like: Inclusive Body-Positive Kids Books

Acknowledge & Celebrate Cultural Diversity

When we over-simplify racism, we tell kids that racism is simply bias against people based on skin color – it’s not.

(That’s colorism, another problem we can tackle later.)

Racism expands beyond skin color – it’s assumptions and discrimination against individuals and groups of people, based on racial identity. This includes not just skin color, but also cultural norms and behavior, language, and other markers of racial and ethnic identity.

White supremacy is assuming that racism would be over if people of color just assimilated and acted more like white people, that assimilation is even a goal for people of color, and that non-white culture is deviant or inferior to whiteness.

How do we counter the entrenched dominant narrative’s focus on whiteness?

Read stories that show how people of color are not monolithic – we’re complex individuals who can’t be reduced to the caricatures of mainstream media. Our ethnic heritage is something valuable worth exploring, and our ancestors traditions, achievements, and challenges have an impact on who we are today.

But our race and ethnicity is not the only thing that defines us. Show kids how we all have a right to pride in our heritage – just not at the expense of punching down another culture.

*On The Day You Begin, *Where Are You From?, *Alma And How She Got Her Name

Not pictured: *Islandborn is another lovely book, which I recommend with reservations. In 2018, several survivors came forth about Junot Díaz’s problematic behavior toward women. One of these reports has been shown to have been overblown – but I’m not comfortable with the way we’re dismissing all survivors of his actions because of this. The book itself is great – so I’ll let you decide how to move forward with all that on your own.

Ages 6-12

Ages 3-10

Ages 3-8

You might also like: Diverse Family Constellations In Kids Books

Explain How Diversity Makes Us Stronger

Having a broad range of experiences to draw from, mindsets to brainstorm, and abilities to solve the problems facing humanity is a very good thing. Human diversity is good for all of humanity and evolution and stuff. I am pretty sure this is SCIENCE.

The idea that winnowing humanity into one make-believe-super-race, or segregating us all into silos based on our racial identity sounds ABSURD. Right? RIGHT?!

Obviously some families are not absorbing the fact that genetic diversity is good for society and the fate of humanity, so we have to make this clear. That whole ‘melting pot’ assimilation thing our teachers celebrated 20 years ago turned out to be a bad idea.

What we need is more of a chunky stew, with folks proudly retaining and celebrating our individual racial and cultural  identities while cognizant of the challenges and discrimination many groups face. These books help kids see how diversity makes us stronger.

*We Are America, *Three Balls Of Wool, *Spork

Ages 6+

Ages 3-9

Ages 4+

You might also like: Immigrants Belong Here: Books To Help Kids Advocate For Human Rights

Stay Curious, Stand Brave & Talk About Race

Don’t stop here. Now that your kids understand that human skin, hair, and all of that stuff comes in a broad change of colors, shapes, and textures – help them see how all people deserve basic human rights, respect, and kindness.

Click here for part 2 of raising Anti-Racist Kids – Children’s Books That Teach Kids About Social Power & Paternalism