Most think the youngest age it's appropriate to talk about race is age 5 or so, as they are ready to start kindergarten. This is too late.
A short thread.

We have years and years of research on children and their recognition of race. We know that 3-month-old babies already show preferences for faces that reflect specific racial groups.
By 9 months, children begin to categorize faces by perceived race-- this person is White, this person is Black. And by 3 years old, they are already associating Black faces with negative traits.
By age 4, a year before most people think it's appropriate to talk to kids about race, children already link White people with higher status and wealth.
By the time kids enter elementary school, researchers find that race-based discrimination is everywhere. Just as parents are beginning to have conversations about race, their children are already stereotyping others because of their color.
We all believe that children don't see race, but that's incorrect. They do. Race is the water in which we all swim, including our kids. It's not that "you've got to be taught", as Oscar Hammerstein wrote. The world teaches our kids to be racist; they've got to be UNtaught.
Don't wait to talk about race until your children have already absorbed racism through their pores and the air they breathe. Sing anti-racism to them in their lullabies. Recite love for all people over cereal. Chant equality while they're playing.
Don't fall back on bad responses like - "that's not polite to talk about." It's the height of impoliteness to NOT talk about it and allow your kid to grow up believing that race is real and racism is justified.
Don't say "skin color doesn't matter" because before your child is a year old, they already know that's a lie. Skin color SHOULDN'T matter and it's unjust that it does. That's what you should tell them.
Black parents don't wait to talk with their kids about race because a Black child's life depends on knowing the dangers of our racist society. Please don't wait to talk to your child so you and they can be part of an anti-racist future.
Done.

More from Life

1/“What would need to be true for you to….X”

Why is this the most powerful question you can ask when attempting to reach an agreement with another human being or organization?

A thread, co-written by @deanmbrody:


2/ First, “X” could be lots of things. Examples: What would need to be true for you to

- “Feel it's in our best interest for me to be CMO"
- “Feel that we’re in a good place as a company”
- “Feel that we’re on the same page”
- “Feel that we both got what we wanted from this deal

3/ Normally, we aren’t that direct. Example from startup/VC land:

Founders leave VC meetings thinking that every VC will invest, but they rarely do.

Worse over, the founders don’t know what they need to do in order to be fundable.

4/ So why should you ask the magic Q?

To get clarity.

You want to know where you stand, and what it takes to get what you want in a way that also gets them what they want.

It also holds them (mentally) accountable once the thing they need becomes true.

5/ Staying in the context of soliciting investors, the question is “what would need to be true for you to want to invest (or partner with us on this journey, etc)?”

Multiple responses to this question are likely to deliver a positive result.
"I lied about my basic beliefs in order to keep a prestigious job. Now that it will be zero-cost to me, I have a few things to say."


We know that elite institutions like the one Flier was in (partial) charge of rely on irrelevant status markers like private school education, whiteness, legacy, and ability to charm an old white guy at an interview.

Harvard's discriminatory policies are becoming increasingly well known, across the political spectrum (see, e.g., the recent lawsuit on discrimination against East Asian applications.)

It's refreshing to hear a senior administrator admits to personally opposing policies that attempt to remedy these basic flaws. These are flaws that harm his institution's ability to do cutting-edge research and to serve the public.

Harvard is being eclipsed by institutions that have different ideas about how to run a 21st Century institution. Stanford, for one; the UC system; the "public Ivys".

You May Also Like