Speaking to My Child About Race
When my oldest was around 3 years old, still at nursery, he told me he didn’t like the colour brown, and he didn’t like brown people. I tried to laugh it off. “You don’t have to like all the colours in your pencil case, but the colours of people’s skin is different. I’m brown and you like me don’t you?”
“Yes but only you.”
I didn’t want to make a big deal of it in front of him but I spoke to the staff at the nursery. Of course they denied all knowledge but offered the idea that sometimes children don’t like dirt and maybe brown represented dirty to him. I couldn’t help but feel mildly offended by that, as a parent and a brown person.
At the swimming pool he wouldn’t play with the little Indian girls, because they were brown. And he refused to play with his brown dolls. I tried to be calm and rational, but I was devastated.
I am of mixed race. I am brown. My son was very pale when he was born, with blue eyes and very fair blonde hair. In the early days other parents actually asked me if he was adopted, strangers would comment, one asking me if I was his wet nurse.
Looking back on his reaction, it seems so obvious now. I had just given birth to his brother. Due to the magic of genes, he was much darker than my first, closer to my skin colour. A friend even said “You must be happy you have your brown baby now!”, Of course that thought had never entered my mind. My oldest decided he was definitely, and defiantly, pink “like Grandma”, and wouldn’t touch the brown pens. Of course it was jealousy, but I was terrified it would run deeper.
His friends at nursery were all different shades, and that didn’t change. I would ask him to describe them, to see if his opinion had changed towards his black and brown friends. But he would never describe their skin colour. I would have to decipher them from their hair type or if they wore glasses. I tried to encourage him to use colour. I want my children to see colour and enjoy the beautiful differences and cultures that shape us.
When I myself was around 9 I used to attend Judo classes. I have never forgotten leaving one session, speaking to a similarly aged black boy who told me I was the worst. He said “White people are the best, then black, then you half casts.” I remember feeling so sad, but for him. Sad that he held that belief that he himself couldn’t be the best. I felt sorry enough for him that I knew he was wrong about me.
My children are part Nigerian and I want them to be proud of that alongside the British and European parts. All I could do was keep reading him books with white, black and brown faces in them. To continue mixing with my own and his friends of all races and colours, relieved that he never said anything to reveal any deeper prejudices. In fact, if I pointed out any differences, he would add them to the exclusion list, which became so long eventually he realised there was no point in not liking people based on skin colour. But the learning couldn’t stop there.
Obviously during Black History Month, through school he learns about important historical black figures like Rosa Parks and Mary Seacole, and I’ve tried to add more that he can relate to such as Ruby Bridges. Every chance I have I try to introduce him to a range of people from history. He’s 8 now and obsessed with Shakespeare (!!) and Einstein (an early fancy dress fave!) and describes events is time as however many years after they lived. So I am trying to add in black writers and scientists, with dates to feed that obsession, while just encouraging my younger son to recognise names and faces. Lockdown home-schooling, challenging as that has definitely been, gave me the “time” to add things I wanted to his school timetable, such as continents and animals of the world. A school project on Egypt meant we could connect countries in Africa via the Nile, and talk populations. The most random things seem to stick for kids, mine anyway. But the most important thing for me has been trying to instill a sense of pride in where his origins lie and how different those cultures are, so that he can appreciate others too. What seems to work for him is researching and making leaflets about the parts of Africa, Europe and the UK that myself and his father are from.
When his little brother started colouring everything in brown, including his arms, I wondered if we were going to have another issue of colour arising. Everything and everyone in books had to be brown. Thankfully, it was short lived though. This week it’s red.
Every black death at the hands of the police is a huge blow, but when George Floyd was killed, on camera, so visibly and audibly, it broke me in a way I didn’t expect. The flood of reaction which keeps on rolling is immense. Calls and emails flooded in to comment, explain or help, despite the only authority I have on this, like many, many others, is the colour of my skin. My 8 year old son is starting to understand, and can see how we stop and take in the news at each turn, and how we support the Black Lives Matter protests. He hears me explain privilege and systemic racism over the phone. So I sat him and his brother down to explain and allow them to ask questions. I can’t pretend it was satisfying and they fully understood, especially the youngest, but the channels are open. It’s incredibly sad to explain to your child that even their “foreign sounding” surname may cause them issues as they grow up, and that just on looks alone they may get a different outcome at certain points in life. While I understand all kids will have some of that, obviously I’m talking about the obvious obstacle that skin colour provides. The 8 year old vows to remain proud of who he is, and to look out for his brother. And for now, that’s all I can really hope for. I don’t have all the answers, but we just have to keep talking, keep reading, keep drawing, keep showing love for all our brothers and sisters worldwide and hope that it sticks.
Written by: Zeb Achonu