What do you tell your children about racism?

[Plane]

http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/Modern-Parenthood/2012/0518/Jeremiah-Wright-white-births-Time-to-talk-race-with-kids

................Many studies have found that white children have negative attitudes toward blacks – even when their parents believe they are modeling racist-free behavior.

In their wonderful book “NurtureShock,” authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman write about a 2006 research study at the Children’s Research Lab at the University of Texas in Austin. Doctoral student Birgitte Vittrup recruited white families who had already signed up to be available for scholarly research to participate in a study about race.

To reiterate: The parents knew the study would be about race. But then Ms. Vittrup asked one group of subjects to start having explicit conversations about the topic at home, suggesting parents ask and then discuss questions such as, “If a child of a different skin color lived in our neighborhood, would you like to be his friend?”

And the parents began dropping out of the study, explaining to Vittrup that they didn’t want to point out skin color to their children.

[Xavier_Onassis]

It is like telling your children about sex. They don't know how to address it and prefer to ignore it.

I recall having conversations with my daughter on a regular basis about all sorts of things, including sex and race. She tells me that I handled it well.