Talking to 4yo about race?

Hmm. I get what you're getting at, but I would skip the "underneath we're all the same" part that's inferred by the
we're all people part. Because underneath, we aren't all the same. We all deserve respect as human beings, but we're not all the same. We're all different, and that's what's cool. I mean, we wouldn't say, "even though the Thompsons have blonde hair and we have black hair, we're all the same underneath." There's some sort of not-rightness about that statement, for me. Because maybe Mrs Thompson is really lazy, hates Mondays, and loves lasagna (oh wait, that's Garfield). And I am a busy overachiever, love Mondays and hate lasagna. But she still gets respect and a smile from me, even though she's a bizarre lasagna-lover.

There is a tendency in classic white liberalism to try to say everyone is the same or towards "color blindness" and that's good. I would say that everyone is different and that is what's great about the world. How boring would life be if we were all the same underneath? It sounds like this is where you were going to go with your statement about "different is just different." And that's cool!

Here is an article that might say it better than I can.

TEACHING YOUNG CHILDREN TO RESIST BIAS: WHAT PARENTS CAN DO
http://www.uua.org/re/reach/parentin...sist_bias.html

For talking with your child about this issue.

DS has been interested in people's colors for quite a while. At this point we most often talk about it when he brings it up. We'll have books from the library that have photos of all different kids, and we'll talk about how "People come in so many colors." I think this seems totally normal to him--I mean, so do dogs and cats --and I guess I kinda dread the conversations when he starts learning about racism, not just race.

One thing I read somewhere and like is that it's helpful to talk about your own skin color too--us white people tend to forget this part . We try to think of words for our skin color, which is not actually white at all, and talk about where our ancestors came from. I think it's important to enjoy our own racial/ethnic/color identity--it gives a kid the foundation for appreciating other people's too, and helps with the feeling that White is the basic color and everybody else is "different."

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Personally, I doubt that there are kids that don't notice, although I'm sure there are plenty that haven't found a need to talk about it. The only proof that I have that ds has noticed is that he'll say "she looks like Lucy" about a caucasian girl with straight blonde hair, or "she looks like Jasmine" about an african-american girl with a lot of braids. He only started saying things like that right after he turned 4, but I doubt that he just noticed. It doesn't strike him as unusual because he lives in a diverse neighborhood and is used to talking and playing with a variety of people. He was three when he first started asking why people were different with regards to weight or disabilities. I actually think kids notice the difference as babies and it is a developmental stage at 3-4 to compare people as similar or disimilar to each other, like playing a matching game. After all, my ds knew his colors by the time he could talk. Why would he not notice skin tones for another 3 years.

I think kids don't necessarily notice skin color for several years. My daughter had a very dark Ethiopian girl in her playgroup for 2 years and didn't notice her skin color until a couple months ago when the girl had a bandage on that contrasted with her skin. There are a million things to notice about a person other than their skin color. The fact that we notice it so quickly and consistently is something we usually learn.

There have been anthropological studies that show that some people don't notice skin color at all, but can tell you exactly how tall or short someone is. I, for one, rarely can recall who is taller or shorter than me other than by guessing from their sex. Other people remember eye color. I never notice eye color. This blows my one friend's mind because she notices and remembers everyone's eye color. I also rarely notice people's clothes. Someone could wear the same clothes for a week, and I wouldn't notice. I do notice every single misspelling and whether or not a person says "um" a lot.

What we pay attention to and what we remember or very much social constructed realities, imo, so that is why I stick to physical explanations of our differences and similarities and let social explanations come up later.

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My 7 year old was with me at a doctor's appointment a little while ago and he asked me why her skin was so dark (I'm not sure of her ethnicity but I assume she was probably born in America - no accent whatsoever, but she has fairly dark brown skin and straight very dark brown hair). I didn't have nearly as good an answer as RubyWild, I felt caught off guard, but I did tell him that all people have different skin colors, even in our own family we have different shades of pale.

I asked if he remembered any of our friends who had different skin colors and he said no, we didn't know anyone. Which was interesting because just 4 days, we had a large playgroup at our house, with mothers and children of Vietnamese, African-American, Indian and Mexican descent as well as many Caucasian mamas and he had never mentioned anyone else's skin color at all.

Another reason I know that he only occasionally notices skin color is that he had a best friend for years who was dark-skinned and Filipino, I had many friends of Chinese-descent and he would play with their children and both my DH and I have had numerous friends from a variety of backgrounds in our home.

I truly believe he only rarely notices skin color.

I, myself, was 17 when I offered a ride to a fellow co-worker. We drove past an "Indian" reserve and he started to make snide comments about Native Americans and I just started in on him, got really worked up and went on and on, how dare you say that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah..... He started to laugh and said, "___, I'm just testing you! I'm Native American."

I looked at him and well, yeah, he did have darker brown-ish skin and straight glossy black hair, dark brown eyes, hmmmm, I hadn't noticed at all, couldn't have told you his hair color or eye color previously. We had a good laugh about it afterwards.

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That sounds really, really weird. Even if he is NA, it's not cool to say stuff like that to someone else to test them or have a laugh. I would be pissed if someone did that. My grandmother is half Western Band Cherokee and says crap about "******" all the time. It is so not cool and really shows a lack of respect. In her case, because she has a very ambivalent relationship with her mother, who was admittedly not the best role model.

I do not usually tell anyone about my grandmother because I look white. I benefit from "white privilege" and don't share the problems that my grandmother faced while growing up. I would never use it to my advantage to play a joke on someone though that utilized racist comments. And I am quite the joker. But not that kind of joke.

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I agree, it was a totally bad joke and I did get angry at him about it. But only so much, since I had never been in his shoes and I had no idea what it was like to have grown up being him and being Native American in that area.

On the other hand, we live down south (and are not from here) and we have both heard all kinds of ugly comments from people about others regarding race. My DH has had people make racist "Jew" comments to him about others, not realizing that my DH's background is Jewish, he enjoys telling them off but it also creeps him out that people even say that stupid s*^*t. He has also been known to say, "What? My wife is black." when others say disparaging racist comments in front of him. (I'm not, by the way)

Perhaps my DH's jokes are tasteless, hopefully they don't offend anyone (besides the racists, guess we don't care that much about their feelings ) but I think they work, they make a point.