Diversity Dialogues

I have been thinking about this for years, and only started to write about it last week, four or five days before Obama's speech on race. I was tempted to let this sit for awhile longer before posting it, but I'm feeling more and more like this is precisely the kind of parenting problem we should be allowing ourselves to consider.

Many of you are going to hate this. But I think it needs to be said. I'm not even sure how to present it, so I'm just going to describe a few true scenes from the last six years of my parenting life, and then add some updates below. We are white, and we live in Brooklyn.

Me (packing up our stuff at the end of a farm vacation upstate): We're going home now!
My son (age 3): Do we have to go back to that place where all the brown people are yelling?

My son (age 6) returning from the local playground one summer afternoon: Mommy, how come only the brown mommies get in fights with each other?
Me: Oh honey, all kinds of people get in fights with each other.
My son: No, in our playground it's always just the brown mommies yelling.

My son (age 8) by the pool, on vacation in a resort in Florida: Mommy, look, there aren't any brown people here.
Me: I know, it seems weird, right?
My son: No, I actually like it.
Me: Really? I think it's boring this way. I like it when all kinds of different people are around me.
My son: Not me. I feel really comfortable like this.

I could SCREAM! This isn't what I planned when I chose to raise my kids in Brooklyn. I grew up in the whitest little town in the world and was the most open-minded person imaginable. Of course, open-mindedness was just a concept. We're all equal. We're all the same on the inside. Nice, clean, untested thoughts.

And in his young life, my own son has made some pretty messy observations.

If there's going to be a group of teenagers walking towards us on the sidewalk, cursing and seeming threatening, they're going to be black. It's just true. If a woman's going to toss McDonalds trash out a car window in front of our house, she's going to be black. If police are called to the street to deal with a fight, the fighters are going to be black. I know that's not the case in other parts of the city, it's not the case in other parts of this borough, but it just plain old is the case here, on my block.

And my son is noticing.

And now this is the part where I point out that my son has all kinds of friends. He's one of the only white kids in his public school class (I think there are five white kids out of 26?) and, when asked recently to list three kids he wants to bunk with at sleep-away camp (each kid has to pick three same-sex kids for their bunk, and two opposite-sex kids to be in meals and activity groups with), he listed three good friends--who all happen to be black. Incidentally each of these three boys is new to his school this year. They've really hit it off, and they're some of his favorite pals. Plus, the two girls he listed happen to not be white as well.

There's plenty of evidence that he's not making choices that match the kinds of comments he's made to me over the years, and for that, I'm overjoyed. But still. These moments have brought me to my knees, in my head. I try to say the right thing, I try to be honest about what he's seeing (lots of poverty and stress), as well as what he's not seeing (the rowdy white teenagers in my hometown, the white moms cursing on River Road on my schoolbus route when I was growing up). But it's hard not to wonder if I might have raised a more solidly open-minded kid somewhere far away from this amazing city.

I try to model all the best behavior...but little I can do has been able to compete with the conclusions he's been drawing from just paying attention to his surroundings.

But then Obama gave his speech in Philadelphia and I watched it two times. What a relief to be given some of the language to handle this. To be given permission to talk about it. We all contain these contradictions--and despite our best parenting intentions, our children contain them too.

Another mom, trying to help me understand these kinds of conversations, summed it up simply by saying 'at least you're HAVING these conversations.' I just wish I felt better equipped to guide him through them.

Original post to New York City Moms Blog....