Are children really colour blind?
So I was out walking with my 5 year old recently and he said “Daddy, that man’s skin is darker than yours…….Mummy has peach skin and you have peach and brown skin”. That got me thinking about something I heard recently “Kids don’t see colour”. It’s a touching sentiment sure, plays well on a meme maybe, but it’s inaccurate. Kids do see colour, my own is testament to that. However, the important part is that kids don’t give any significance or bias to it. They see it for what it is, a factual truth and no more. Ascribing prejudice, bias and negativity is a learned behaviour.
Now immediately you might be thinking, well it’s the same thing, you’re just nit-picking. I’m really not because if you believe the ‘kids don’t see colour’ line then it’s easy to get caught up thinking “my child is colour blind, therefore I must not talk to them about race and colour, I must act as if it doesn’t exist”. Which would be fine if the entire world was a colour blind, racism free utopia, but unfortunately, it’s not, but you didn’t really need me to tell you that did you? Race exists and so does racism and as I’ve said many times and will continue to say many times, this racism can and does manifest itself in unconscious bias that some people don’t even know exists (that’s why so many people have a hard time even admitting that racism is alive and kicking in the modern world). If you think the right thing to do is avoid talking about race and racism with your kids what you are really doing is leaving them to their own devices to go and learn this stuff on their own and the last time I checked race wasn’t on the national curriculum. So where are they going to learn about this stuff - TV? Social Media? Friends? other parents? My blog? (well that one’s ok but you know what I’m getting at). You wouldn’t leave your child’s English, Maths or Science education to such chance would you, so don’t leave them learning about race to chance.
Talk to your children about this stuff. It’s incumbent on all of us to talk to our children about race and equality issues. Educate them on the history of it from around the world, tell them about slavery, talk about Apartheid in South Africa, talk about segregation in the States. Educate them on racial issues so when they grow up they don’t have those unconscious bias that many of us ended up developing without even knowing it. Help them maintain that mindset that colour, creed or race is just another thing about a person no different to the colour of someone’s t-shirt, because trust me, that’s how they currently see it and it’s important that it doesn’t change. Because after all, none of this is really about us or for us, it’s for the next generation to grow up without racism, but it won’t happen by chance, we’ve got to make it happen.
Anyway, that’s my thought for the day, I’m off to put my boys to bed with a Little People, Big Dreams book about Martin Luther King Jnr (I’d recommend it for anyone with young kids).
