“You can’t ignore racism and raise anti-racist children. You have to tackle it head-on”
“I understand the fierce love that we feel for our children, but if we truly love them and want them to grow, we have to tell them the truth about their actions and how those actions shape who they are. In this case, the truth is that these young men — even if they were drunk, even if they were raised the “right way”, and even though they may feel shame now — are racist. The real next step for them needs not to be arguing that point, but figuring out how they can mitigate the very real harm they caused.
White people have the privilege of pretending that racism doesn’t exist or is a relic of the past. It would’ve been easy enough to say to myself that the book my daughter brought home from the library was published in 1937 and that times have changed, kept turning the pages and returned it like normal. But despite many people pointing out the book’s racism — its Amazon reviews are full of warnings — it is still being widely sold and, obviously, housed in children’s libraries. And, presumably, other parents are reading it to their children as though the illustrations and depictions are normal or acceptable.”
It's weird, I remember being really into Babar when I was little…
