the first black president...? - Page 6

[sagemomma]

i'm sorry if i offended anyone, but i am extremely offended by the white privlege idea. to say mccain had no reason to worry about assanitaion is just not true, just as many people dislike him as obama.
anyway sorry if i offended ya, i just refuse to believe that i have any privlege, i struggle as much as the next person and i am a minority in my area.

[artgoddess]

Originally Posted by sagemomma

i'm sorry if i offended anyone, but i am extremely offended by the white privlege idea. to say mccain had no reason to worry about assanitaion is just not true, just as many people dislike him as obama.
anyway sorry if i offended ya, i just refuse to believe that i have any privlege, i struggle as much as the next person and i am a minority in my area.

no one ever said that. if you want to get angry about what people have said here, at least get angry about what people have actually said.

there are some great posts over in a thread in politics I hope you will check out that help explain privilege. but i will tell you this saying that white privilege doesn't exist is like saying a cavity doesn't exist when a dentist examine you because you can't see it yourself. If you leave it alone eventually your whole mouth is going to suffer, you instead have to take steps to fix thing. I believe part of that is teaching our children about privilege and racial struggles and what a wonderful step this is in a long journey toward equality in this country. We have no "arrived" but this election was a great symbol to hold up showing us we have at least chosen the right path.

[sagemomma]

hello ladies, it's me again. i would again like to apologize for my remarks. i have been put on some new medications that are quite literally changing my brain chemistry so maybe i am misreading, or just reading things and taking them the wrong way. i'll revisit it once i have adjusted to my new brain....again i'm sorry if i have taken certain posts the wrong way, or if my typing has not come accross as clear.
i'll bow out gracefully now . good evening ladies

[Kajira]

Originally Posted by sagemomma

exactly periwinkle, my young children will grow up with a black president and for them it will be the norm. i think it does obama a disservice to concentrate so much on his race, he is so much more than that.
and the idea of the "white privelage" of not seeing race is probably one of the most ridiculous, racist things i have heard in a long time. : where i live, there is no white privelage, i am one of 3 white families in the area. my kids aren't going to get any preferential treatment for thier race, there is no college fund set up for white american children,or any of the other funds and associations set up for only white children as there are for so many other races so the "white privelage" idea is pretty out there. if there was a united white american college fund or anything like that it would be ripped apart as being racist.

you know I mostly stayed away from MDC during the election then I come back to this.

Do you know how insulting your statement is to people who are black or married to a person of color, have black kids? Because you are a minority where you lived does not mean by and large the rest of the world is like that.

You are offended by white privilege so am I, everytime my husband with a "white sounding" name gets a job interview and the interviewer near catches a heart attack at the 6 foot black man who's name isn't Leroy/Cedric or Ifumo so he could have automatically throw his resume in the no bin! Altho he's way more educated and qualified than the white guys who've been hired instead of him (happened more times than I care to count)
I get real offended when people start talking about these special college funds that blacks get that my husband, brother in law, and 3 baby cousins don't get, they are all black where is their money?!

Back on topic
I didn't have to tell my black kids this was special, they got it, even my not yet 2 year old looked at the tv and looked at us and got that heyyyyyyy they look like mommy and daddy look!
children aren't blind, they aren't mini adults but they have noticed and no it's not normal and trying to fool yourself that it is, is doing a disservice to your kids!

[bronxmom]

I am of the "it's incredibly important and historic and we should teach our kids that" camp. A couple of ideas though that I specifically wanted to take issue with our: that our ancestors did some terrible things; that a Black president is the "new normal"; or that racism can be compared to treating someone badly because of their eye color - isn't that silly?

The problem is that racism is not just something terrible that our ancestors did and it isn't gone just because Obama got elected and it's not the same as treating someone badly just because they have different color eyes. Racism is institutionalized in our society and is still deeply entrenched - even though it received a tremendous blow last week. 2 1/2 million people are in prison, disproportionately people of color. Black unemployment is much higher than white unemployment. More young Black men are in prison than college. Police shoot and kill young Black men with impunity. And the list could go on and on. It's not just an attitude that our kids have or don't have, but a deeply entrenched oppression that has to be uprooted from every single aspect of our society - personally, I think it will take so much more than just one election or even changing ideas to achieve such a fundamental transformation. Obviously, kids can't understand the entirety of this all at once. But they can understand that racism exists. We live in NYC where Sean Bell was shot 50 times by the cops on his wedding day. How do I explain to my daughter why this is without beginning to explain how deeply rooted racism is in our society? She goes to public schools that are segregated and underfunded - how you explain this? Equally, I think it's important to explain why I feel so strongly about being a fighter against racism - and all oppression and injustice for that matter. For the record, my daughter is not Black and doesn't herself suffer from racism. But she is a conscious member of this society and I think the choice is to whitewash reality or to explain it - there are plenty of opportunities to do this in response to actual situations. I choose to explain. My daughter is Arab-American and I do understand the immediacy and difference of having to explain from a position of one's own experience of oppression. One of the most terrifying experiences of her life was when she was only 4 and a man threatened to beat her Egyptian father up on the street and screamed racial obscenities at him in front of her. I can only imagine what it's like for parents of Black children to have to explain why Sean Bell was killed or why the cops harass their father on the street.

Racism will not go away just because our pre-schoolers don't realize that their classmates are Black or Latino or whatever. It will end both because we have a change in attitudes AND because we uproot the material and institutionalized basis of racism. The election showed that we have come a long way and that the potential for multi-racial unity exists - but we have so far to come. We do a disservice to our kids and our society if we pretend otherwise.

[lolar2]

I wanted to address a fear I'm seeing between the lines of some of these posts. I am getting the impression that some of you who are white (like me), are worried that teaching your children about race and racial prejudice and about the specialness of Obama's election might make them become racist. I know I've heard some white parents express that concern IRL at various times. Rest assured, teaching your children about race and the past and present forms of racism will NOT make them become racist. There is NO evidence that it will.

I think that is part of the resistance to seeing "colorblindness" as part of white privilege, even though of course it is. In some cases a white parent who actually is working very hard to prevent her children from becoming racist, but is going about it in a non-ideal way, finds herself being told that her strenuous efforts in that direction are themselves an expression of white privilege. It looks like a no-win situation at first glance.

[Arwyn]

Originally Posted by mamabutterfly

[Also, her school had 'elections' last week. She voted for Obama, but she also let me know that if next time around, there were a woman with dark skin who would also end the war, she's voting for her!]

That would be McKinney. She was indeed in the running, even if thanks to our 2 party system almost no one knew it.

I am greatly aware of my privilege that I can look at my 1.5 year old and decide that it's too young for us to really have to talk about this yet (although we did spend most of 11/3 getting him to say "Obama" ["bamba!"] -- his mouth ain't quite up to "president" yet, but we have a couple months to go ). It is absolutely a privilege that the concept of racism hasn't been thrusted upon him yet. I understand wanting to protect that perceived innocence, but what that really does is coddle privilege -- creating exactly the atmosphere for racism to thrive.

But like I said, he's 1.5. I'd be having to spend a lot more time working through my privilege if he were a couple or few years older -- and we'd both be better off for it.

[eccomama]

Originally Posted by sagemomma

one of my main thoughts on the matter was and is, i realize that in the past there have been tremendous cruel actions brought upon people of different races,religion , sexual orientation ect (part of my family was in a concentration camp while part was royalty but i hardly feel the need to discuss it at every turn). but with young children doesn't it do a disservice to them to teach them to be hung up on those factors. is it better to let them grow up seeing this as a normalcy? is this how we move forward as a people by letting our children see diversity as being normal instead of making a big to do about it. inside i am hanging from the rafters, i want to cry every time io see barack on tv because i am so proud of our country and honored to be able to see this period of time. but of you ask DS what his friends look like he tells you about thier hieght, hair , clothes and so on . he never says what color they are, i don't think it occurs to him and i don't want to shatter that, i would rather him learn in school as he gets older about the terrible things that have happenned in the past and learn about tolerance and equality now. just my thoughts. and ladies lets not get catty.... this is an honest question that i was curious about not a debate .

[kama'aina mama]

Last night I was telling my 8 year old that some of our friends will be going down to Washington for the Innauguration and I was thinking about going. Finally she asked me "What's the big deal?" She knew I was excited about Obama and campaigned for him. She woke up to the shouting and champagne corks on election night and knows how happy we all are but she didn't get this part. She didn't know why I was telling her she would always remember this election. So I told her. I told her about miscegenation laws, that his parents couldn't have married in the state she was born in, that black children were denied good schools. I told her about water fountains and lunch counters and back doors and we cried together for a while. I thought I had been telling her all along... maybe I was and she didn't quite get it. I'm not sure. But I think it's important. I'm not going to raise a child to ignore history and to pretend she doesn't have privileges that she does.

[plantmama]

Originally Posted by lolar2

I wanted to address a fear I'm seeing between the lines of some of these posts. I am getting the impression that some of you who are white (like me), are worried that teaching your children about race and racial prejudice and about the specialness of Obama's election might make them become racist. I know I've heard some white parents express that concern IRL at various times. Rest assured, teaching your children about race and the past and present forms of racism will NOT make them become racist. There is NO evidence that it will.

I think that is part of the resistance to seeing "colorblindness" as part of white privilege, even though of course it is. In some cases a white parent who actually is working very hard to prevent her children from becoming racist, but is going about it in a non-ideal way, finds herself being told that her strenuous efforts in that direction are themselves an expression of white privilege. It looks like a no-win situation at first glance.

I think you said very clearly what my fear is. I'm afraid that if I have a talk about racism with my son and it "comes out wrong" on my part it will make him view black people differently, perhaps with fear. I'm also not sure because of his age whether he will understand that these things happened in the past, i.e not to a boy his age (I'm talking about slavery, jim crow etc...).
I think starting with the positive might remedy that. Talking about Obama ofcourse, Martin Luther King Jr.
I do think things are different for children these days though obviously institutionalized racism will take a lot of effort and time to overcome. My ds sees black characters in every single tv show he watches, he will see a black president govern the country, and in our case we live in a city where racism is discussed and the black community is pretty empowered, though many problems still exist. For example I don't think a single non minority was murdered here this year. Three young black men have been murdered in OUR neighborhood in the past year and a half and yet I don't worry about my safety, so I clearly see white privilege in my own life.
And yet as I walked up to the park on November 5 I felt more connected to to the black people in our neighborhood because I felt a common excitement over the election. And a guy asked me how I was and then he smiled and showed me the headlines and as he turned away said this was a proud day for him. So, you know, my dss see that and maybe they get some ideas.
I want them to learn from experience in a way and I guess I'm afraid if I adulterate that experience by trying to explain things that are over their head I'll mess it up.
I definitely understand the importance of this issue.

[kblackstone444]

Originally Posted by lolar2

I wanted to address a fear I'm seeing between the lines of some of these posts. I am getting the impression that some of you who are white (like me), are worried that teaching your children about race and racial prejudice and about the specialness of Obama's election might make them become racist. I know I've heard some white parents express that concern IRL at various times. Rest assured, teaching your children about race and the past and present forms of racism will NOT make them become racist. There is NO evidence that it will.

I think that is part of the resistance to seeing "colorblindness" as part of white privilege, even though of course it is. In some cases a white parent who actually is working very hard to prevent her children from becoming racist, but is going about it in a non-ideal way, finds herself being told that her strenuous efforts in that direction are themselves an expression of white privilege. It looks like a no-win situation at first glance.

You put that very nicely. That's a big part of the reason why I tried not to make it such a big deal that a black man will be president. I grew up thinking that to point out the differences would be racist.

[artgoddess]

I think also for those of us with young children it's hard to think about bursting the bubble of "everyone is good". My 4 year old doesn't really have a concept of people not liking other people. He doesn't know that there are people who want to hurt others. Hell I'm behind in teaching him good touch bad touch stuff because I'm not sure how to tell him that people in the world exist who are not nice.

That said, I will without a doubt check out the books recommended up thread. I do believe it is so important to teach my kids about racism, so they can be actively anti-racist calling out injustices where they see them. And even more importantly to this discussion I recognize our families privilege in that I have been a parent for 4.5 years and haven't *had* to explain racism.

we did talk a little about the confederate flag last month when we saw one on a car.

[lolar2]

Here's the thing: if you are white and you do not teach your children about racism, sooner or later they will encounter it in their daily life. No matter how sheltered, something will happen that will show it to them.

This link talks about a study regarding teaching children about racism and prejudice:

http://gradpsych.apags.org/jan05/recognition.html

"Her study compared the effects of teaching children about racism and teaching them about accomplished African Americans. She found that lessons that included learning about racism produced more positive and less negative attitudes toward African Americans than did race-based lessons, such as those taught during Black History Month."

So in fact, teaching about racism not only does not make children racist; it actually makes them less racist, or less likely to become racist.

[readytobedone]

Originally Posted by Missy

Please, try to stay with me here. I'm very tired. I'm going on limited sleep. We were at the final Obama rally in Virginia on Monday and didn't get home until nearly 2 am; we worked the polls all day Tuesday and couldn't sleep again until 2 or 3 am...I will try to be coherent. And, I will try to stay calm. Both, at the moment, might be a little difficult.

My children do not have the luxury of being colorblind. My little boys (ages 9 and 6) have looked at the pictures of the last 43 presidents and noticed that none look like them. They know that Barack Obama is the *only* Black senator (there's not as much diversity on the Hill as we'd like to think) They know that we had presidents who owned slaves. They know that mommy and daddy couldn't have gotten married in Virginia 45 years ago. They know that there are people who don't like them simply because their skin is darker, and that sometimes, things aren't quite fair...simply because their skin is darker.

Last night, my daughter and I went to a victory party. We were happily eating buffalo wings, cheering lightly as the Dems got one seat after another. Then, they called Virginia for Obama. I stood up. I cheered. I screamed. And then I started sobbing. I had to sit down. Virginia. Virginia voted for a Black man.

The first slaves arrived in Virginia. The capital of the Confederacy is in Virginia. There were school systems that completely closed down for years so they wouldn't have to integrate. We had a senator who hung a noose from a tree in his office and pretended it was a lasso. There's still a slave block in the town where I grew up, about a block away from where Sarah Palin recently held a rally.

My husband and I were threatened when we started dating in high school. My parents were threatened. My last name, my married name, is the same as the man, the plantation owner, known in Virginia as "King Carter". Guess why.

So I cried. Then they called it for the nation, almost immediately, and the man next to me collapsed in tears. And my 13-year-old daughter suddenly stopped cheering, and just stood there, with tears streaming down her face. Because she knows exactly what this means.

This is beyond huge. To not acknowledge the significance of this election, to pretend it's "normal", does a massive disservice to this country, to Barack Obama, to the people who died not just so Obama could become president but so he could simply receive an education, and to--yes--my children. Who didn't have the chance nor the choice to be "colorblind".

Let your children celebrate the whole of this election.

stunning, beautiful post :

i'm a white north carolinian, and i live in VA right now. i was thrilled beyond words they BOTH went for obama.

[Mokhwrar]

My children are also colorblind, and I did make an extra effort after the election to explain why this was bigger than his policies.

I don't think this same discussion would be happening if it was Hillary Clinton was the President Elect. I think mothers and granmothers across America would be very excitedly explaining to their daughters and grand-daughters why this was a HUGE deal because of women's history in America.

But bring race into it, and people wonder if they should address it?

[merpk]

This is so off-topic that I'm not even going to attempt to connect it ... pardon me, mamas ... but

Originally Posted by kama'aina mama

Last night I was telling my 8 year old ...

She's 8 already?






Time flies. Or maybe we've been hanging around here too long.

[*LoveBugMama*]

I wholeheartedly agree with Missy, CookieMonsterMommy and several others. This is HUGE! :

I`m a Norwegian, white woman. Living in Norway. Raising a white son. And even I have talked about this with him. A lot. I sat up most of the night to see the results (we are 6-9 hours ahead of you), and when my son woke up, one of the first things he asked was "what happened? Did Obama win, mama??) And he was so happy when I said yes! (His best friend is black, and the thought of him being any less worthy makes my son really angry.)

So I really, really think it is very important to tell our children about this. It`s an amazing time in history. And it`s important for us nonamericans, too. What happens in USA affects us all, and it affects the way we view the world.

He won!!:

[*LoveBugMama*]

Originally Posted by sagemomma

i'm sorry if i offended anyone, but i am extremely offended by the white privlege idea. to say mccain had no reason to worry about assanitaion is just not true, just as many people dislike him as obama.
anyway sorry if i offended ya, i just refuse to believe that i have any privlege, i struggle as much as the next person and i am a minority in my area.

McCain could ofcourse have been assasinated. But because someone didn`t like his ideas. Obama could have been that, too. But he ALSO could have been because he was black.

I struggle, too. I`m white. And I struggle. But, a black woman would have all MY struggle, AND a whole lot more, because she is black. I just can`t wrap my head around this. Not trying to be snarky at all. But isn`t it very clear that the world DOES treat people of colour differently? It certainly is to me.

[SundayCrepes]

Haven't read other responses.

to me it is a non-issue. Historic, yes, but otherwise I could care less.

We read And Tango Makes Three to our son (about gay penguins) so he grows up thinking gay is normal. Same with black president. It is just a normal part of life (or should be.)

[Missy]

Originally Posted by mybabysmama

Haven't read other responses.

to me it is a non-issue. Historic, yes, but otherwise I could care less.

We read And Tango Makes Three to our son (about gay penguins) so he grows up thinking gay is normal. Same with black president. It is just a normal part of life (or should be.)

And it would be really nice if you read some of the other responses. Because it's not a non-issue.