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In this issue: A white mom unpacks the question she's often asked of her brown kids: "Where are they from?"; rethinking the terms "passing" and "presenting"; 9 year-olds criticize Disney; reading racist books to kids; and more.
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EmbraceRace is our community of support around race and raising kids! With each bimonthly newsletter, we feature original posts from EmbraceRace bloggers and curated content from across the web. Thanks to everyone who contributed comments, posts and recommended resources. Your efforts help make EmbraceRace the community we want and need!

In designing and constantly trying to improve EmbraceRace, we’ve been thinking a lot about how to support constructive conversations about race online, and we’re still figuring that out. We’d love your help getting there.

The two of us have different levels of comfort contributing to online forums and discussions about race. Andrew has a lot of experience, professional and personal, talking and writing about race publicly. Melissa, on the other hand, thinks and talks a lot about race with friends and colleagues who are inclined to listen generously. But she is reluctant to subject herself to twitchy trolls who might disrupt online conversations.

With the help of our advisors at Powerlabs, one of our strategies has been to use Medium as our main blogging platform for EmbraceRace. Why? In part because anyone can join and blog on Medium and submit pieces to EmbraceRace there. But also because, although anyone can join Medium to comment on and recommend pieces, only comments that writers recommend are visible and become part of the discussion. Our hope is to allow for disagreement while blocking out vitriol.   

Be part of the experiment -- join Medium (here’s how) and start commenting on (and recommending) EmbraceRace stories.

The 13 stories – and counting! – on our Medium page collectively have been read more than 16,000 times. That’s tremendous for such a short run, but we’d also like to develop our commenting and dialoguing muscle as a community and to encourage more readers to become writers.

So please add YOUR voice to the mix!  What would it take? Where do you/would you feel comfortable dialoguing honestly about race and raising kids online? Are you comfortable doing so on our public Facebook page?  A private one? Are you ready to start or join the conversation on EmbraceRace at Medium? Email us your thoughts or post them on the community Facebook page.  

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Andrew and Melissa
hugs@embracerace.org
 

This white mom’s brown kids are from right here

“Don’t get me wrong: I take pride in having carried, given birth to, and nursed Rory for more than a year, and I am sort of baffled by the rigid thinking that underlies an assumption that he’s adopted (white moms only give birth to white babies…ummm no, and maybe that’s a topic for another blog post); but I positively rail against the question’s implication that, somehow, brown people aren’t from here.”
The Tiresome Question I’m Often Asked About My Brown Kids: “Where Are They From?”
Megan Dowd Lambert, EmbraceRace Staff, Medium
[5 minute read]

“Your grandfather was not an indio!”

“The silence matters. The deep silence in my family about who grandpa really was. About who we are. And the fact that I still don’t feel comfortable claiming those roots for myself - that brings me close to tears.”

My troubled, uncertain relationship with the indígena within
Sofia Jarrin-Thomas, EmbraceRace Staff, Medium
[3 minute read]

Video: Native college student speaks truth (Native American genocide) to power (her genocide-denying history professor)

“It’s like cowboys and Indians, modern style. Except instead of us getting scalped and killed and enslaved or whatever, we’re in a classroom and we’re fighting for the truth. And when I stand up and say, this is what happened, it gets [swept off the table].”
Sacramento State student stands ground on genocide of Native Americans
The Sacramento Bee
[3 minute video]                        
Rec'd by Carmen

When racial “passing” is involuntary

“We use 'passes' and 'presents' as if multiracial individuals have full say and control over their racialization. When they don't at all. Could I work to pass as white? Yes. But would it work? Maybe. It all depends on the reader. Meaning this: we only pass when others let us pass.”

"Passing," "Presenting," & the Troubled Language of Mixed Race
Sharon Chang, Multiracial Asian Families
[7 minute read]

Rec'd by Julie

“Your hair’s kind of weird. It’s poofy!”: Helping kids understand and prevent microaggressions

“I remember not knowing how to talk about what I experienced, or how it made me feel because comments and questions could easily be explained away by my sensitivity, or the other person’s good intentions or curiosity.”  This article was written for classroom teachers, but it includes helpful advice about how to intervene when witnessing microaggressions among kids in any social situation. The first recommendation: separate intention from impact.  
4 Ways Teachers Can Address Microaggressions in the Classroom
Kimberly Griffin, Noodle
[4 minute read]
Rec'd by Sabrina

Third graders write letter to the head of Disney Parks

“We are third graders from New York City at The Cathedral School. We learn about stereotypes, and the impact they have on people’s identities. For instance, in the jungle cruise, all the robotic people have dark skin and are throwing spears at you. We think this reinforces some negative associations, we think you should replace them with monkeys throwing rotten fruit.”

Two nine-year-olds’ magnificent open letter to Disney about racial and gender stereotypes
Maria Popova, Brain Pickings
[5 minute read]

Rec'd by Robert

Resources to use with kids


Time to share an old favorite with your child—but this isn’t the book you remember!
Andrew Grant-Thomas was on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday recently, talking about whether and how to read racially challenging “children’s” books to kids.

How do we read books embedded with racism?
National Public Radio
[6 minute listen]
Teaching kids about Equality, Equity… and Liberation?
Equality and Equity can be challenging concepts to grasp, especially for kids. The Center for Story-Based Strategy and the Interaction Institute for Social Change tweaked some familiar images, making those concepts more accessible to children. They also invite us to imagine social justice possibilities that just might go beyond equality and equity.
Don’t just tell a different version of the same story. Change the Story!
Center for Story-based Strategy
Read more stories from the EmbraceRace community on Medium

Your turn


Say “Hello!” or otherwise email your ideas for EmbraceRace to hugs@embracerace.org (or simply by responding to this email).
EmbraceRace is grateful for the generous support of the Kellogg Foundation, the NoVo Foundation - and people like you!
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