Given that I’m so white I glow in the dark I spend a noticeable amount of time thinking about what I can and should do to raise a child who has a good understanding of race issues and who isn’t a twat. That’s an important bit. Some of the good stuff I’ve been reading lately include:
http://loveisntenough.com/2009/08/05/white-noise-white-adults-raising-white-children-to-resist-white-supremacy/
http://nerdsevolving.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-black-women-were-white-women.html
There are others, of course, but I closed some tabs too quickly.
we live in very diverse community; racially, genderly, sexually.
all we did was run under the flag of the Golden Rule and everything turned out just fine.
as words came up for us to explain, that’s what we did.
my mom once used the word “nigger” in front of my kids. they (about 5) had never heard it and asked me what it meant.
“that’s a word,” i said, looking my mom in the eye, “that assholes use when they talk about people with dark skin.”
she never used racial epithets in front of them since.