tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24215087.post2788719341483552224..comments2023-05-14T07:51:18.017-05:00Comments on The Suburban Christian: Kids and race awareness, and why parents don't talk about itAl Hsuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04407264726681695790noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24215087.post-3627045448023869732009-09-11T13:07:47.793-05:002009-09-11T13:07:47.793-05:00I heard one of the scholars, Jo (last name?) inter...I heard one of the scholars, Jo (last name?) interviewed on TV, and I thought he overemphasized the biological developmental part of kids perceiving race. If parents talk about race, or don't talk about race, kids learn race. Young children notice skin color just as they notice everything else, but they are taught its meaning. <br /><br />That skin color is a 'marker' for a person's potential for being nice, bad, friendly, or whatever is learned. Kids don't 'automatically' make those attributions just because of their developmental stage.<br /><br />I also think the conversation has a kind of default setting to "whites" and "nonwhites" -- that various 'nonwhite' races have negative attributions for white kids. The increasing numbers of biracial and multiracial people in the country should be an important variable - does binary racial thinking subsume even increasing multiracialism, or is multiracialism changing the conversation (if you take the time to listen to the conversations of the very young).Jenell Williams Parishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08347811275921462284noreply@blogger.com