Racist Babies? Resisting Whiteness in Parenting

*Naomi W. Nishi*

### **Abstract**

Whiteness has evolved in the way that mostly white parents teach their children to embrace and normalize it. Whereas within the United States previously, white families employed explicitly racist tactics to maintain whiteness in their children, today white, neoliberal families have adapted their whiteness to be more implicit and socially acceptable. This chapter draws on literature and narrative inquiry to describe how whiteness is passed down, generation by generation. The author looks particularly at white, neoliberal, and color evasive families of today to deconstruct these myths. The author closes by offering strategies and examples for parents who want to raise critically conscious and socially just children and grow these traits within themselves as well.

**Keywords:** ParentCrit, critical race parenting, whiteness, critical consciousness, family development

### **1. Introduction**

Recently, a white1 mother of a white, 3 year old son told me she was planning to talk to her son soon about race and so, given my scholarship in race and parenting [1], she'd want to have a conversation with me before she brought it up because she did not know what to say. She went on to note that her son's best friend was Black, and she was so glad that her son had not brought up the race of his friend because "he just doesn't notice race." As she related this, I sensed a touch of pride from this mother that her small son did not see race.

Even though this mother seemed self-assured that her child had never heard or seen a racist or racially discriminate comment or action, I explained to her that children as young as her son not only can see color or race difference, but they are already forming social meaning and value based on that difference. The white mother's face turned grim as I mentioned that oftentimes children, even though they are starting to think about race, learn from their white parents that it is rude or embarrassing to point out someone's race. It is this taboo avoidance, as much if not more, than her son not noticing race that could be why her son had said nothing within earshot of his parents about his friend's or his own race or color.

In this critical theoretical essay, I discuss literature related to white parenting and racialization as well as draw on autoethnographic mother writing [1–3], to show how whiteness is passed down intergenerationally particularly in the United States.

<sup>1</sup> To resist symbolic forms of whiteness, I choose to capitalize identifiers for People of Color, including Black, and opt to use the lower case for white [1].

Autoethnographic mother writing is a methodology that draws on motherscholars' experiences and observations rooted in their roles as both mother and having been mothered [1, 2]. Although autoethnographic mother writing is radically specific [3], it is rich with lived experience and sense-making. By pairing this methodology with other existing scholarship related to whiteness and parenting, this essay offers practical anti-racist explanations and strategies immersed in theory, research, and narrative.

This essay also falls within a larger body of scholarly work known as Critical Race Parenting or ParentCrit [1, 4–9]. ParentCrit falls within Critical Race Theory work as it applies to parenting children within racial realism and to be critically conscious. For Parents of Color and/or white parents of Children of Color, ParentCrit often focuses on parenting to teach self-love and how to combat racism in parenting Children of Color [4, 5, 7, 8]. For white parents, it often involves reflection on and combating whiteness in oneself and in one's white or white-presenting children [1, 6, 9]. Yet, one of the tenets of ParentCrit is the continued learning and growing toward social justice in both parent and child [10], as well the way that this growth happens in relationship with parent and child [1].

Given this, the essay focuses on intergenerational whiteness in the midst neoliberal movements that insist that race is no longer socially significant [11] and where color evasive [12] stances twist the words of those working to increase critical consciousness around race and instead call them racist for even bringing up the word "race." I end by offering several strategies for parents wanting to disrupt the cycle of whiteness in their parenting and in so doing, begin to reverse the complicity of most white parenting with white supremacy.

Before moving into this discussion, it is helpful to give starting definitions of whiteness and neoliberalism, although this essay delves into different dynamics of both. I define whiteness as a sociopolitical ideology, held mostly by white people, that is used to normalize and promote white supremacism [13]. Whiteness is embedded in systems through traditions and spoken and unspoken rules that privilege [14] or immunize [15] white people, protecting them from the racialized violence that is the reality for People of Color. This includes white people retaining amassed wealth particularly from ancestors who stole land from Native peoples or profited from African enslavement, access to quality education, and exemption to discrimination, microaggressions and larger acts of aggression due to race.

Whiteness is not a static phenomenon. White people constantly evolve their performances of whiteness to best normalize and uphold it and white supremacy [16]. Given this, one of the latest flavors of whiteness, particularly in the United States lies in white post-racial and neoliberal belief systems. Giroux shows how the racism of today or new racism [11, 17] is entwined with neoliberalism, and demonstrates how this neoliberalism is an individualistic endeavor, focused on free market that, in its pursuit toward these, has relied on pretense and a color evasive political project that denies how race and racism work in our world, particularly to benefit white people. Instead, neoliberalism and its users have adapted a language that explains white beneficiaries as meritorious and uses a cultural racism [17] to blame People of Color for their own disenfranchisement.

#### **2. The evolution of generational whiteness**

In the 1950s, Black Pscyhologists, Kenneth and Mamie Clark [18] conducted a series of experiments studying how children interpreted race. In these experiments, children of different races were presented with two dolls, a Black doll with black

**215**

doll is bad [20, 22]?

*Racist Babies? Resisting Whiteness in Parenting DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91674*

(1954) case [19] in support of school desegregation.

hair and a white doll with yellow hair. The children were then asked a series of questions, like which doll is beautiful, which doll is the good doll, or which is the bad doll. Most of the children, regardless of the child's race chose the white doll when asked which was beautiful, and similarly most children chose the white doll when asked which was the good doll and, conversely, the Black doll when asked which was the bad doll. The Clarks at the time used their research to demonstrate the damage to self-identity and self-esteem of Black children in the then segregated US school system. The Clarks even testified compellingly in the *Brown v. Board of Education*

The Clarks' doll study was significant in the way that it showed that not only did small children recognize race, but they also made social value judgments based on race at that same young age. Although the Clarks' original studies were published in the 1940s and 1950s, similar experiments with children's perceptions of race have since been replicated, with results being similarly troubling [20, 21]. One significant difference is that Black children identify the Black doll as the bad one to a lesser extent [21], perhaps signaling improved self-image for those Black children whose parents diligently provide them with dolls, books, toys, etc. that are positive representations of Black people and Black culture. However, white children in the 1950s and today in the US, despite the national rhetoric touting a post-racial society where color no longer matters, still tend to make value judgments based on race that favor white people [20, 22]. But, why? Most children in the US today have grown up with a Black President, they have seen Doc McStuffins on TV, they have worn Black Panther costumes for Halloween. Certainly, these Black role models have had some impact on children's racial values. So, why would a white boy wearing a t-shirt with the latest Spider-verse Spiderman character (a Black, Latinx boy) still say the Black

Thandeka, a Black scholar and Theologian wrote the book **Learning to Be White**, [23] published in 1999. In the book, she describes how white parents pass down whiteness to their white children or "teach them to be white" by withholding love or shaming their children when those children engage with Children of Color. For instance, white parents berating their children for playing with the Black child next door or refusing to talk to their child when they show up at home dating a Person of Color are examples of the punishment some white parents impart when their white children do not keep to their own. All of these subtle and not-so-subtle reprimands of white parents signal to their white children that if they have relationships with People of Color, the cost will be the ending of their relationship with their parents. Thandeka describes this withholding of love or this race-conditioned love as akin to child abuse, and shows the damage done to white children, as they

Thandeka captures the white parenting process and also touches on how white people teach themselves to avoid thinking of themselves as white or even part of a racialized system. White people tend to think that race is something possessed by People of Color. It is in this belief that white people then begin to found the normalization of whiteness. Things that are white are normal; everything else is different, diverse, exotic, strange…race. Thandeka describes a game she created where she invites white people for a week to identify each person they talk about as white (if they are), e.g., My white neighbor, Sally, stopped by for a cup of coffee with my white friend, Angie, and all of our white kids played out back. Thandeka relates how none of the white people she invites to play this game can manage to do it for more than a day. They all find themselves embarrassed or shamed to racialize themselves and other white people and cannot stand the looks of disdain from other whites when they are breaking this cardinal rule of never racializing whites and, in

are groomed to be the next generation of whiteness keepers.

so doing, maintaining the normalization of whiteness.

#### *Racist Babies? Resisting Whiteness in Parenting DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91674*

*Parenting - Studies by an Ecocultural and Transactional Perspective*

happens in relationship with parent and child [1].

of most white parenting with white supremacy.

Color for their own disenfranchisement.

**2. The evolution of generational whiteness**

narrative.

Autoethnographic mother writing is a methodology that draws on motherscholars' experiences and observations rooted in their roles as both mother and having been mothered [1, 2]. Although autoethnographic mother writing is radically specific [3], it is rich with lived experience and sense-making. By pairing this methodology with other existing scholarship related to whiteness and parenting, this essay offers practical anti-racist explanations and strategies immersed in theory, research, and

This essay also falls within a larger body of scholarly work known as Critical Race Parenting or ParentCrit [1, 4–9]. ParentCrit falls within Critical Race Theory work as it applies to parenting children within racial realism and to be critically conscious. For Parents of Color and/or white parents of Children of Color, ParentCrit often focuses on parenting to teach self-love and how to combat racism in parenting Children of Color [4, 5, 7, 8]. For white parents, it often involves reflection on and combating whiteness in oneself and in one's white or white-presenting children [1, 6, 9]. Yet, one of the tenets of ParentCrit is the continued learning and growing toward social justice in both parent and child [10], as well the way that this growth

Given this, the essay focuses on intergenerational whiteness in the midst neoliberal movements that insist that race is no longer socially significant [11] and where color evasive [12] stances twist the words of those working to increase critical consciousness around race and instead call them racist for even bringing up the word "race." I end by offering several strategies for parents wanting to disrupt the cycle of whiteness in their parenting and in so doing, begin to reverse the complicity

Before moving into this discussion, it is helpful to give starting definitions of whiteness and neoliberalism, although this essay delves into different dynamics of both. I define whiteness as a sociopolitical ideology, held mostly by white people, that is used to normalize and promote white supremacism [13]. Whiteness is embedded in systems through traditions and spoken and unspoken rules that privilege [14] or immunize [15] white people, protecting them from the racialized violence that is the reality for People of Color. This includes white people retaining amassed wealth particularly from ancestors who stole land from Native peoples or profited from African enslavement, access to quality education, and exemption to discrimination, microaggressions and larger acts of aggression

Whiteness is not a static phenomenon. White people constantly evolve their performances of whiteness to best normalize and uphold it and white supremacy [16]. Given this, one of the latest flavors of whiteness, particularly in the United States lies in white post-racial and neoliberal belief systems. Giroux shows how the racism of today or new racism [11, 17] is entwined with neoliberalism, and demonstrates how this neoliberalism is an individualistic endeavor, focused on free market that, in its pursuit toward these, has relied on pretense and a color evasive political project that denies how race and racism work in our world, particularly to benefit white people. Instead, neoliberalism and its users have adapted a language that explains white beneficiaries as meritorious and uses a cultural racism [17] to blame People of

In the 1950s, Black Pscyhologists, Kenneth and Mamie Clark [18] conducted a series of experiments studying how children interpreted race. In these experiments, children of different races were presented with two dolls, a Black doll with black

**214**

due to race.

hair and a white doll with yellow hair. The children were then asked a series of questions, like which doll is beautiful, which doll is the good doll, or which is the bad doll. Most of the children, regardless of the child's race chose the white doll when asked which was beautiful, and similarly most children chose the white doll when asked which was the good doll and, conversely, the Black doll when asked which was the bad doll. The Clarks at the time used their research to demonstrate the damage to self-identity and self-esteem of Black children in the then segregated US school system. The Clarks even testified compellingly in the *Brown v. Board of Education* (1954) case [19] in support of school desegregation.

The Clarks' doll study was significant in the way that it showed that not only did small children recognize race, but they also made social value judgments based on race at that same young age. Although the Clarks' original studies were published in the 1940s and 1950s, similar experiments with children's perceptions of race have since been replicated, with results being similarly troubling [20, 21]. One significant difference is that Black children identify the Black doll as the bad one to a lesser extent [21], perhaps signaling improved self-image for those Black children whose parents diligently provide them with dolls, books, toys, etc. that are positive representations of Black people and Black culture. However, white children in the 1950s and today in the US, despite the national rhetoric touting a post-racial society where color no longer matters, still tend to make value judgments based on race that favor white people [20, 22]. But, why? Most children in the US today have grown up with a Black President, they have seen Doc McStuffins on TV, they have worn Black Panther costumes for Halloween. Certainly, these Black role models have had some impact on children's racial values. So, why would a white boy wearing a t-shirt with the latest Spider-verse Spiderman character (a Black, Latinx boy) still say the Black doll is bad [20, 22]?

Thandeka, a Black scholar and Theologian wrote the book **Learning to Be White**, [23] published in 1999. In the book, she describes how white parents pass down whiteness to their white children or "teach them to be white" by withholding love or shaming their children when those children engage with Children of Color. For instance, white parents berating their children for playing with the Black child next door or refusing to talk to their child when they show up at home dating a Person of Color are examples of the punishment some white parents impart when their white children do not keep to their own. All of these subtle and not-so-subtle reprimands of white parents signal to their white children that if they have relationships with People of Color, the cost will be the ending of their relationship with their parents. Thandeka describes this withholding of love or this race-conditioned love as akin to child abuse, and shows the damage done to white children, as they are groomed to be the next generation of whiteness keepers.

Thandeka captures the white parenting process and also touches on how white people teach themselves to avoid thinking of themselves as white or even part of a racialized system. White people tend to think that race is something possessed by People of Color. It is in this belief that white people then begin to found the normalization of whiteness. Things that are white are normal; everything else is different, diverse, exotic, strange…race. Thandeka describes a game she created where she invites white people for a week to identify each person they talk about as white (if they are), e.g., My white neighbor, Sally, stopped by for a cup of coffee with my white friend, Angie, and all of our white kids played out back. Thandeka relates how none of the white people she invites to play this game can manage to do it for more than a day. They all find themselves embarrassed or shamed to racialize themselves and other white people and cannot stand the looks of disdain from other whites when they are breaking this cardinal rule of never racializing whites and, in so doing, maintaining the normalization of whiteness.

Thandeka does elucidate multiple elements of whiteness and the intergenerational passing on of whiteness in her book. And, what she describes is still very much at play in many white families. However, her book was written over 20 years ago, and what critical whiteness scholars show, is that whiteness and white tactics evolve to best uphold white supremacy. [13, 16, 24] Whiteness is slippery in the way that it's hard to get a handle on. As soon as you think you have nailed down how whiteness is operating, whites have already morphed how they perform and maintain it. As soon as you have developed an antiracist training to confront the problem of whiteness, white people have already taken a diversity training and are employing the same language to instead promote white norms. My point is that Thandeka, at the time of her book's writing could not foresee how white neoliberal parents of the next generation were going to mold the principles of whiteness they'd learned from their parents. When these younger neoliberal parents were raised by the Baby Boomers, it was socially acceptable in many white communities to forbid your child to play with the Black kid next door. Today, in many places, this is not socially acceptable. So, white parents (often unconsciously) employ a more tactful maintenance of whiteness, one that no one can call you racist for. This leads to a whiteness performance that creates a scapegoat of racist Uncle Donald at the holiday dinner table while quietly allowing today's white parents to go about affirming white norms and superiority with their children, all the while assuring themselves that they and their children aren't racist.

Thandeka captured the shame that white people have when asked to racialize themselves and acknowledge their whiteness, but in addition to whites' aversion to identifying their own race, today's neoliberal white parent also does not want to identify anyone else's race; it's uncouth. Beverly Tatum, in her book, **Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations About Race**, [25] points out that white people consider race talk taboo. She remarks on how white people tend to whisper that a person is Black or Latinx as if identifying the race or ethnicity of a Person of Color is an insult or a dirty secret that nobody dare say. This taboo of identifying anyone's race is rooted in early colonization and enslavement where white people, and particularly white women taught themselves to fear Black people, and particularly Black men. Black Psychologist, Frantz Fanon, in his book **Black Skin, White Masks** [26] vividly describes a moment of walking down the street in Martinique, when a white child points at him and cries to his mother, "Look, a negro!" His mother gasps and pulls her son to the other side of the street and out of harm's way. Fanon analyzes this action and names the fear behind both the white child's utterance and his mother's response. This illustration although written about in the 1950s feels uncannily relevant today. A white child, particularly one who has not been around People of Color because he/she was raised in a white suburban enclave, upon first seeing a Black person, points and says in a loud voice, "Mommy, look that person is Black!" The white mother then swiftly teaches the child the race taboo by shushing the child, getting embarrassed, or even scolding the child for identifying something new they are seeing – race [1]. Although, as Tatum discusses, there is nothing negative about identifying a Person of Color's physical attributes, the white mother out of embarrassment, and perhaps deep-rooted fear or disdain tries to distance herself from the Person of Color the child has pointed out. But, even though these may be deeprooted racist reactions to a Person of Color, today's nice white neoliberal parent instead rationalizes their reaction because their child has not intuited the cardinal rule of color evasion, which the parent justifies is all about equality [1].

Sociologist, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva identified this white neoliberal race evasion in his book, **Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America**. [17] Although Bonilla-Silva coins this phenomenon as "color-blind racism," I opt for an expression that does not use ableist language as

**217**

*Racist Babies? Resisting Whiteness in Parenting DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91674*

chisement on People of Color, themselves.

that everybody is equal and color does not matter.

to ever talk about color or race again!"

recommended by Annamma, Jackson, and Morrison [12]. I refer to this concept as color evasive racism or color evasion. Bonilla-Silva's book is based on interviews with white adults. Through these, he identifies several ways that white people employ color evasion. These include making false justifications for the evidence of racism that do not sound explicitly racist, for instance describing gentrification and racial segregation of schools as being a natural result of people just wanting to be around people who are like them. Bonilla-Silva also identifies what he describes as "abstract liberalism," which gets at the heart of color evasion. White people, when asked a question about race often default to "Oh, I don't even see race." Or, as Bonilla-Silva showed, when asked about affirmative action, i.e., preferences for people from under-represented racial groups in higher education or the job market, white people would often say they were against it because they thought everyone should be treated equally. Of course, this abstract liberalism sounds nice. How can you call the person speaking racist when they have just said they want everyone to be treated equally? Yet, this nice, color evasive talk is perpetuating racism in the way that it denies the lived reality of People of Color and instead blames their disenfran-

It will come as no surprise then, that these same white adults, use the same color

Years ago, I was conducting research with focus groups of white kindergartners

As mentioned, one of the core problems with teaching white children to be color evasive is that color evasion ignores the reality of racism and white supremacism. While the color evasive parent will read children's books about Martin Luther King Jr. to their children, particularly on MLK day, most of those books read as though when the 'white only' signs came down racism ended and today we are all treated equally. Racism, as it were, is a thing of the past and a thing of the US south. This is the message that well-intentioned, neoliberal white parents teach the next generation about race. And this serves white families well, as they continue to normalize themselves and their dominant narratives. This is also why we frequently see white college students demonstrating what Robin DiAngelo refers to as *white fragility* [27] when they are first confronted with the racial realities of People of Color in a course that deals with race. Or a white student is assigned a roommate who is a Person of Color and not willing to go along with the shallow color evasive framework the now white young adult has embraced and managed not to question [22], in part cause they knew how upset their white family would get if they went and brought up a nasty topic like race.

in the rural Midwest of the United States. I had their white teacher read them several multicultural picture books and then asked the children a series of question about the books. I wanted to know how white children in a mostly white setting understood race and culture through the books. As we began the study, the kindergarten teacher went off script. She asked all of the children to hold out their hands. A plentitude of beige, pinkish, and peachy little hands all reached into the circle where the teacher also held out her hand. "Are we all the same color?" she asked. "No," replied most of the kids, identifying freckles or the slight variations of shade in their hands. "That's right!" congratulated the teacher, "we all have different color skin, but we're still all the same!" I remember thinking at the time that this teacher might as well have concluded her mini race lesson with, "So, there's no reason for us

evasive approaches if and when they teach their children about race. The white parents focused on in Thandeka's book are in no uncertain terms telling their white children to stop playing with Kids of Color, if they want to remain in the family. But, currently, there is a growing crop of neoliberal parents who are avoiding conversations about race with their children, but if their child asks a question about race or color, white parents resort to canned abstract liberalism, assuring their kids

#### *Racist Babies? Resisting Whiteness in Parenting DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91674*

*Parenting - Studies by an Ecocultural and Transactional Perspective*

Thandeka does elucidate multiple elements of whiteness and the intergenerational passing on of whiteness in her book. And, what she describes is still very much at play in many white families. However, her book was written over 20 years ago, and what critical whiteness scholars show, is that whiteness and white tactics evolve to best uphold white supremacy. [13, 16, 24] Whiteness is slippery in the way that it's hard to get a handle on. As soon as you think you have nailed down how whiteness is operating, whites have already morphed how they perform and maintain it. As soon as you have developed an antiracist training to confront the problem of whiteness, white people have already taken a diversity training and are employing the same language to instead promote white norms. My point is that Thandeka, at the time of her book's writing could not foresee how white neoliberal parents of the next generation were going to mold the principles of whiteness they'd learned from their parents. When these younger neoliberal parents were raised by the Baby Boomers, it was socially acceptable in many white communities to forbid your child to play with the Black kid next door. Today, in many places, this is not socially acceptable. So, white parents (often unconsciously) employ a more tactful maintenance of whiteness, one that no one can call you racist for. This leads to a whiteness performance that creates a scapegoat of racist Uncle Donald at the holiday dinner table while quietly allowing today's white parents to go about affirming white norms and superiority with their children, all the while assuring themselves that they and their children aren't racist. Thandeka captured the shame that white people have when asked to racialize themselves and acknowledge their whiteness, but in addition to whites' aversion to identifying their own race, today's neoliberal white parent also does not want to identify anyone else's race; it's uncouth. Beverly Tatum, in her book, **Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations About Race**, [25] points out that white people consider race talk taboo. She remarks on how white people tend to whisper that a person is Black or Latinx as if identifying the race or ethnicity of a Person of Color is an insult or a dirty secret that nobody dare say. This taboo of identifying anyone's race is rooted in early colonization and enslavement where white people, and particularly white women taught themselves to fear Black people, and particularly Black men. Black Psychologist, Frantz Fanon, in his book **Black Skin, White Masks** [26] vividly describes a

moment of walking down the street in Martinique, when a white child points at him and cries to his mother, "Look, a negro!" His mother gasps and pulls her son to the other side of the street and out of harm's way. Fanon analyzes this action and names the fear behind both the white child's utterance and his mother's response. This illustration although written about in the 1950s feels uncannily relevant today. A white child, particularly one who has not been around People of Color because he/she was raised in a white suburban enclave, upon first seeing a Black person, points and says in a loud voice, "Mommy, look that person is Black!" The white mother then swiftly teaches the child the race taboo by shushing the child, getting embarrassed, or even scolding the child for identifying something new they are seeing – race [1]. Although, as Tatum discusses, there is nothing negative about identifying a Person of Color's physical attributes, the white mother out of embarrassment, and perhaps deep-rooted fear or disdain tries to distance herself from the Person of Color the child has pointed out. But, even though these may be deeprooted racist reactions to a Person of Color, today's nice white neoliberal parent instead rationalizes their reaction because their child has not intuited the cardinal

rule of color evasion, which the parent justifies is all about equality [1].

Sociologist, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva identified this white neoliberal race evasion in his book, **Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America**. [17] Although Bonilla-Silva coins this phenomenon as "color-blind racism," I opt for an expression that does not use ableist language as

**216**

recommended by Annamma, Jackson, and Morrison [12]. I refer to this concept as color evasive racism or color evasion. Bonilla-Silva's book is based on interviews with white adults. Through these, he identifies several ways that white people employ color evasion. These include making false justifications for the evidence of racism that do not sound explicitly racist, for instance describing gentrification and racial segregation of schools as being a natural result of people just wanting to be around people who are like them. Bonilla-Silva also identifies what he describes as "abstract liberalism," which gets at the heart of color evasion. White people, when asked a question about race often default to "Oh, I don't even see race." Or, as Bonilla-Silva showed, when asked about affirmative action, i.e., preferences for people from under-represented racial groups in higher education or the job market, white people would often say they were against it because they thought everyone should be treated equally. Of course, this abstract liberalism sounds nice. How can you call the person speaking racist when they have just said they want everyone to be treated equally? Yet, this nice, color evasive talk is perpetuating racism in the way that it denies the lived reality of People of Color and instead blames their disenfranchisement on People of Color, themselves.

It will come as no surprise then, that these same white adults, use the same color evasive approaches if and when they teach their children about race. The white parents focused on in Thandeka's book are in no uncertain terms telling their white children to stop playing with Kids of Color, if they want to remain in the family. But, currently, there is a growing crop of neoliberal parents who are avoiding conversations about race with their children, but if their child asks a question about race or color, white parents resort to canned abstract liberalism, assuring their kids that everybody is equal and color does not matter.

Years ago, I was conducting research with focus groups of white kindergartners in the rural Midwest of the United States. I had their white teacher read them several multicultural picture books and then asked the children a series of question about the books. I wanted to know how white children in a mostly white setting understood race and culture through the books. As we began the study, the kindergarten teacher went off script. She asked all of the children to hold out their hands. A plentitude of beige, pinkish, and peachy little hands all reached into the circle where the teacher also held out her hand. "Are we all the same color?" she asked. "No," replied most of the kids, identifying freckles or the slight variations of shade in their hands. "That's right!" congratulated the teacher, "we all have different color skin, but we're still all the same!" I remember thinking at the time that this teacher might as well have concluded her mini race lesson with, "So, there's no reason for us to ever talk about color or race again!"

As mentioned, one of the core problems with teaching white children to be color evasive is that color evasion ignores the reality of racism and white supremacism. While the color evasive parent will read children's books about Martin Luther King Jr. to their children, particularly on MLK day, most of those books read as though when the 'white only' signs came down racism ended and today we are all treated equally. Racism, as it were, is a thing of the past and a thing of the US south. This is the message that well-intentioned, neoliberal white parents teach the next generation about race. And this serves white families well, as they continue to normalize themselves and their dominant narratives. This is also why we frequently see white college students demonstrating what Robin DiAngelo refers to as *white fragility* [27] when they are first confronted with the racial realities of People of Color in a course that deals with race. Or a white student is assigned a roommate who is a Person of Color and not willing to go along with the shallow color evasive framework the now white young adult has embraced and managed not to question [22], in part cause they knew how upset their white family would get if they went and brought up a nasty topic like race.
