Dear Anti-Racist Parent:
Over the past seven or eight years, I’ve been on a journey to relearn history – you know, leaving behind the history I was taught and trying to grasp the real truth of the events that have shaped our nation’s history. At the same time, I have three elementary-age children. They attend a very diverse school […]

The meritocracy and race: Michelle Obama’s much-discussed thesis laid bare the experiences that many young, black adults–many people of color period–have at predominantly white universities. In yesterday’s Washington Post, Theola Labbé-DeBose explored how her later experience in college in many ways mirrored Michelle Obama’s, and how education may not be “the great American equalizer.”
I last […]

LINK FIXED!!! Sorry ya’ll.
by ARP editor Tami Winfrey Harris
I have been reading Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present. For its unflinching view of our country’s origins, it triumphs and its sins, this book, along with James Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me ought to be required reading for every citizen of […]

Reader Graig M. needs your help. He writes:
I’m a daily reader of Anti-Racist parent, but I only occasionally post.
I work in education, and recently a friend of mine started writing a book for educators on how to teach multi-racial children. As the adoptive parent of a multi-racial daughter, she asked me to write about my experiences for […]

It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for another gratuitous cute kid pic. Reader Kary W. says of this beautiful little one: “This is a photo of our adopted daughter, Tasha. She’s almost 2 now. I’m a photographer and have been challenged when it comes to taking pictures of her – she always makes the most […]

by guest contributor Shannon LC Cate, crossposted from Peter’s Cross Station
After the Donaldson Institute’s report on MEPA came out, I was asked (even more than usual) “well, then, what should prospective (or current) transracial adopters do to learn how to parent their kids to honor the importance of race in their lives?”
Here’s my answer: You […]

Find the mochi on aisle 3: Over at Kimchi Mamas, Carol writes about non-Korean families who stumble upon the delights of Super H-Mart.
When I shop at my friendly local Super H-Mart, as is my wont on lazy Sunday afternoons, I always notice the non-Asian patrons. Not all, but the ones that sloooowly wander the aisles […]

Dear Anti-Racist Parent,
My four-year-old daughter was humming “Brown Girl in the Ring” this morning… catchy song. I wasn’t thinking much about it at first, and then the words started to sink through my skull:
Brown girl in the ring
Show me your motion
She looks like a sugar and a plum.
I don’t know what to think about this. […]

“It’s okay to be a different color.”
“It’s okay to dance by yourself.”
“It’s okay to wear glasses.”
“It’s okay to have a pet worm.”
“It’s okay to be different!”
So says author/illustrator Todd Parr’s whimsical book “It’s Okay to be Different” (Little Brown) that celebrates diversity in all its forms. Perfect for children in pre-school to grade 2, this […]

It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for another gratuitous kid pic. Reader Lea’s bunch bond at the bottom of a slide at the playground.

Dear Anti-Racist Parent,
I’m writing to ask for any insight or similar experience or simply your perspectives.
This last weekend, we were reading bell hooks’ Homemade Love, and my nearly four-year-old daughter remarked that she wanted to look like Girlpie, and she wanted me to look like Girlpie’s mama and her papa to look like Girlpie’s papa. […]

by Carmen Van Kerckhove
You don’t use racial slurs. You teach your child to treat everyone equally. You expose your family to diverse cultures.
That’s enough to make sure your children don’t grow up to be racists, right?
Not necessarily.
If you want to learn how to incorporate anti-racism into your parenting, join our free teleseminar happening next Wednesday, […]

Get in your box: In The Seattle Times, a bi-racial writer discusses how the 2008 presidential election, featuring a bi-racial candidate, has reawakened her own questions about race and where she fits. (Editor’s note: It annoys me a bit when writers like this one balk at Barack Obama being identified as a black man. It is […]

I loved Liza’s post last Wednesday about her daughter’s hair.
Some of you who know me from other blogs and spaces know that hair–that is the celebration of curly, untameable, big hair–is part of my personal anti-racist crusade. I want girls and women whose ancestry gives them curly hair, coarse hair, kinky hair and nappy hair to love their tresses (not just learn […]

It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for another gratuitous kis pic. Here, reader Gina S. shows off her beautiful brood.

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Liza Talusan
Daughter #1 is at it again.. the hair. All the smart anti-racist parents called it a few months ago when I posted about the issues my 4- year old daughter is having with her hair. Her big, curly, beautiful hair. Joli has the kind of hair that people want to […]

More American than African: The blog Castiza Notebooks has a charmingly-written post about Washington, D.C., pre-teen Eiesus Mehary, an American-born son of Ethiopian immigrants who, like many children of immigrants, is establishing an identity different from that of their parents.
I disagree with the post’s assertion that “Yesi” and children of black immigrants like him are “defining the latest […]

Dear Anti-Racist Parent,
I need some help.  I am a white mother of white children.  But having been raised in a community that was predominantly minority and largely economically disadvantaged, I’ve always been concerned about race issues in our country.  I’ve been a long-time reader of ARP and I am committed to raising my two girls […]

written by ARP editor Tami Winfrey Harris
At this moment, there are more than 6.6 billion people on the planet! It’s hard to picture so many people at one time–but what if we imagine the whole world as a village of just 100 people?
21 people speak a Chinese dialect
10 earn only about a dollar a day
17 […]

written by editor Tami Winfrey Harris
I shared in my review of bell hooks’ “Happy to be Nappy” that I would love to offer a regular column on ARP that reviews valuable resources for antiracist parenting: books, Web sites, films, games, workshops, etc. I’m doing research, but I need to hear from you, too. I know […]