This is why it matters when our kids’ books have only white, able-bodied, neurotypical, cisgendered, gender-stereotyped characters. This is why it matters that we talk with our toddlers and our preschoolers about diversity and gender and sexuality and race and privilege, to the best of our ability, in ways they can understand. They may not know exactly what they are inside yet, they may not know exactly what race means yet or exactly what sex is yet, so it might seem to “not matter”, but so, so soon they will.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about race, and racism, and white privilege, and the intersection of feminism and anti-racism (and the intersections of feminism and racism), and I think that was part of why I was trying to do the ultra-liberal thing of conflating all -isms together in one big homogeneous lump and treating them all with “these suck, don’t do them” stick.
It doesn’t work that way, of course.
The very fact that I can think and say that my child may not know what race is at not-quite-two is because I am white, and my child is white, and The Man is white, and I swim, eat, breathe white privilege. Of course my child doesn’t have to “deal with” race yet, or understand that the color of his skin speaks of so much more than how much melanin he produces; not because he is two, but because he is white. We have the option of talking with him about racism, or not. We have the option of talking with him about privilege, or not. That is one small aspect of this giant napsack of white privilege: the option to ignore it exists.
And being white; having this privilege I did not ask for and do not want; having been raised knowing racism was bad but never talking about race; having been taught that to be “color blind” was the goal so if we all (by which of course we mean white people) just squeezed our eyes shut real tight and held on and wished hard, it would go away (it being race and racism and privilege and difficult conversations and horrific pasts and horrific presents)… it’s hard to talk about.
I have to anyway. Even if I don’t always know what to say. Even if I get it wrong sometimes (which I did, and which I will again). Because I have to, else the Boychick will become just another damn clueless white guy, and I can’t let that happen.
Arwyn
In my bathroom hangs a plaque with a picture of a yin yang and the word BALANCE. I can never get it to hang straight. This probably says something deep and meaningful about my life.
[...] Something I said in my last post has been bugging me [...]