Raising White Kids Quotes

“Children can’t learn antiracism if they don’t have the practice of observing, naming, and discussing race in their tool kit.”
― Jennifer Harvey, Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America

“given that racism is, tragically, far too normal and pervasive in the United States, Raising White Kids presumes that cultivating antiracism in our children and living it ourselves is a key commitment to bringing up healthy white children in this nation.”
― Jennifer Harvey, Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America

“talking about racism is not actually ‘telling them about something they didn’t even know existed,’ but helping them understand what they witness, experience and/or participate in every day.”8 Direct adult intervention is necessary, then, to challenge and question the conclusions children will otherwise draw, conclusions that will reflect the broader, racist messages that float freely throughout society. We can’t intervene if we’re teaching color-blindness.”
― Jennifer Harvey, Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America

“One white person cannot on her own change the collective meaning of her white identity by antiracist action. But one person can continually change her own relationship with her white identity. We can enable our children to cultivate a meaningful sense of their identity as people who live for justice and in resistance to racism despite being from a people from whom such behaviors are rarely expected (and, unfortunately, too rarely come).”
― Jennifer Harvey, Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America

“they are left exposed to internalize views of the United States as a nation innately and exceptionally good, and a pure beacon of equality and justice. The less critical our children are of such a narrative, the more difficult it will be for them to really stand up for justice.”
― Jennifer Harvey, Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America

“is difficult for many white adults to begin to speak about race openly and explicitly. We only learn to do it and get better at it through practice. There’s no way around those awkward, challenging feelings. ​There’s no special age at which point kids are ready to hear and understand the difficult truths about race and racism. They begin to work out their racial concepts and ideas long before they can articulate them. ​We start with our children’s deepest assumptions about the world: a notion of race as visible and normal, an awareness of racial injustice, and a working presumption that people can and do take actions against racism. ​ Young children should be engaged with lots of talk about difference: skin tone and bodies, and the ways different communities of color identify. Making a commitment to normalize talk about difference preempts the pressures kids experience to treat difference as a taboo. ​Be aware that using the language of race—especially with young children—always runs the risk of reducing people to labels or implying everyone who shares that identity label is the same in some significant way (stereotyping). Be specific and nuanced. ​Race-conscious parenting for a healthy white identity development must include teaching about racial injustice and inequity as much as it does racial difference. Consider experiential learning, such as protests, for this.”
― Jennifer Harvey, Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America

“I’d been troubled throughout high school that in my robustly multiracial school my advanced placement classes were almost exclusively white. I knew something was wrong.”
― Jennifer Harvey, Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America

“So let’s be specific. When we talk about Doc McStuffins, let’s talk about her brilliance, her kindness, her being a girl, her imagination, her being Black, her healing gifts with toys and stuffed animals, the fact her mom is a doctor, and on and on.”
― Jennifer Harvey, Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America