White Parents Don’t Talk to Their Kids About Race. Here’s How I Learned to Do It.
On Indigenous Peoples Day, it’s worth some introspection
I didn’t plan it this way, but as the federally designated Columbus Day takes place this year, our family is finishing the last of Louise Erdrich’s Birchbark House series about a 19th century Ojibwe family.
The five books are delightful, as Erdrich — herself a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa — vividly brings to life a young Indigenous girl named Omakayas, whose family has lived on the shores of Lake Superior for generations. We’ve learned about harvesting wild rice and tanning deer hides. We’ve laughed at pet porcupines and worried about near-starvation in the depths of winter.
And because this family’s saga cannot mirror the triumphant, prosperous arc of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s pioneers, we spent many bedtimes talking about colonization, and smallpox, and theft of native lands.
The books were on my mind when researchers at Sesame Workshop and the University of Chicago released a remarkable survey of 6,000 U.S. parents last week. The vast majority of all parents self-reported that they feel comfortable talking about topics like race, gender, and religion. And yet when it comes to discussing race with their children, while…
