She’s 7 and She Knows About Race and Racism

She’s biracial, bicultural, and she is perceptive.

The author's young daughter standing next to her Kenyan grandfather as they rest and take in the scenery in Kenya. From the author's personal photo library.

This little girl has seemingly known about race since her birth — ok maybe not that long but it’s as though she came into the world knowing something of it. She was able to verbalize thoughts and experiences about race and racism before she went to kindergarten. In the handful of years she’s been here, the world has made her specially aware that it doesn’t see her as white. I know this because she informs me of it.

Let me tell you about this little one, my youngest child who is a newly turned 7 years old. She’s feisty, decisive, quick-witted, brave, adorable, and knows herself better than I’d expect of someone her age. She’s able to read other people and can dodge trouble with an endearing “I’m sorry” and flash of her cute dimples. This week, when her big brother asked her, “why are you so sassy?” her quick and cheeky answer was, “because it’s what I was born for.”

While it takes a bit more to gain access to the inner worlds of our two oldest kids, this little one keeps few of her thoughts, opinions, needs, and worries to herself. She keeps it real and keeps us honest. And she definitely knows about race and racism — she talks with us about that too.

There was the time when she was 4 years old and we awoke to her crying. Her crying out at night was startling and strange because after infancy, our children haven’t needed us much in the night. Typically, they go to bed and we don’t hear from them until morning.

And the forceful way that she cried, I don’t remember her crying this way before that night or since. It was a heaving, can’t catch your breath kind of cry. We were alarmed and unsettled. We hadn’t seen our generally self-possessed little girl distressed in this way. My husband held her as she sobbed. Several minutes passed before she became calm enough to speak and tell us what upset her. And when she did… it broke us.

With tears streaming down her small face, she told us that she’s afraid when her black dad leaves our home. She’s worried that he won’t come back to us. That someone will hurt him or kill him. She’s fearful we’ll lose him because, at age 4, she already knew that this world we live in doesn’t look after and value black and brown people like it does white people.

Then there was the time that she told me she felt sad for her friends. Her best buddies are two of our most favorite little kids and she loves them dearly. She told me that their family is all black — that no one in their home has light brown or white skin like in our family. She was sad because people treat her friends badly. She’s seen it happen and she tells me that it’s because of their dark skin.

She asked me, what if her friends were my kids? She wanted to know, what would it be like for me if my whole family was black? She wondered aloud, what would I do if I was a black mom, like her friend’s mommy?

She sensed that, while they — my spouse and kids — are not white, their proximity to whiteness and, her lighter skin and that of her siblings, offers them something her black friends and black dad don’t have access to. She recognizes the different impact racialization has on differently raced people. She understands our racial hierarchy as most taking care of and listening to white people and, after white people, those with lighter skin.

I don’t know how she’s weaving together the narrative of who she is, with who our mixed race family is, and with the stories of race told and re-told in America. One time she asked me, “how did the white people get the power?” She’s also repeatedly said, “I don’t trust people with blue eyes. Because it doesn’t make sense to trust them.” She doesn’t or can’t yet explain the meaning she’s making of this idea of blue-eyed people.

Recently, she was dancing around our living room singing a joyful song that proclaimed over and over “beautiful and black.” It was one she had written herself. When I asked about her tune, she simply responded, “I’m singing it because it’s true.” While riding in the car one day, she told me Beyoncé’s “Brown Skin Girl” was about her and her sister. I don’t know the knowledge of race and racism she holds that goes unspoken — that which she might feel in her body and in her being.

I imagine, if you’re white like me, hearing stories like these about little kids facing the realities of race in our world or utilizing song to affirm the beauty and worth of black and brown skin, might make you feel badly or uncomfortable. I can bet that you wish such stories and experiences with race weren’t so. Maybe you want to do something but feel helpless to do anything. At least, these are the responses that I often get when I share these kinds of stories with the white people in my life.

I see whiteness — the beliefs, practices, and norms, that support white dominance — as separate from white people. Those things that perpetuate racial imbalance, the parts of being white that we learn through socialization and culture, they don’t have to be part of us. Identity, who we choose to be, the stories we tell and live, and the meaning we make, is pliable and full of opportunity.

Because of what whiteness taught me about skin color, I never feared harm coming on me or my white family due to race. Never in my life have I used song or music to help me remember my white worth and resist harmful messages about the color of my skin. My children and spouse know a different racial reality than I do. These stories about my little girl and our family aren’t shared here to evoke guilt or shame, they simply are. I’m not trying to make you feel bad about yourself or anyone else.

When it comes to race and white people, shame and guilt often seem to overwhelm us so that doing, being, and/or perceiving things differently feels too difficult or even impossible. Sometimes we can’t see ourselves as separate from the things we feel shame and guilt about — we internalize the message that we are bad. That the things making us feel guilty and shameful are attached to our being in a way that makes us forever linked.

With race, I’ve seen many of us white folk buy into the idea that if whiteness is bad, then that means we are bad. But we are not whiteness, we are human. Whiteness is socially constructed and is outside of our being. It can be rejected.

Transformation of the sort I feel we need, doesn’t come from telling others what they should feel — or declaring exactly what other people need to do. I’m not sure if there’s a one size fits all formula. For me, it’s been a messy process with lots of starts and stops. And, the work is layered and continuous.

It feels a presumptive act too, for me to make it my duty to tell another person what is for them to do. When I do this I take away their autonomy to figure it out for themselves. I don’t know another person the way they know themselves. I can’t definitively say what’s in their way or what will drive their change. That’s for each of us to work out.

This is part of the chasmic task ahead of me with whiteness and racial inequity, letting go of the need or expectation that others would figure it out for me. For some reason, I thought there were experts who had developed a step-by-step method. I figured that I could say “I’m ready,” and someone would tell me the right thing to do.

I now realize that taking responsibility for my part in the system of racism, involves learning about myself and the ways I’m deeply connected to white dominance. I’m needing to work out how to untangle myself from whiteness. And, I can’t ask others to tell me how to do this, it’s unfair, unrealistic, and burdensome to put that on another person. This work is mine to do.

But I can offer openness and share my examination of whiteness. I can invite you to join me and extend solidarity as we try to work this out in community. My training as a therapist and personal experience have served me well in my interrogation of whiteness and in helping others on their journey. (You can learn more about how I do that here).

What I want us to do is acknowledge that there are some problems that we are born into and can’t escape. I want us to know that this world we’ve inherited hasn’t made social issues easy for us — especially the issues with race. But, this world is ours and we are left with what to do with it and how to relate to it.

I want us to expect that social change is possible and that we’re the ones to make it happen. I want to build a culture where dehumanization and oppression are abnormal and unacceptable. I want us to come together, let go of the social constructs that shape us in ways that limit us, tap into our shared humanity, and listen to one another. I long for us to understand the problems we face and our individual part in them, support one another in working to undo shared problems, and leave this place better than we found it.

My 7 year old is trying to figure out what to do with the problem of racism. She can’t look away, she can’t ignore it. Neither can I. And, I hope, you too won’t look away.