Can Your Children be Friends With White People?

PoetrySoup.com

The New York Times published an op-ed that is garnering some attention, and I thought I would take a moment to briefly discuss it. 

In it, the man is basically telling us that after the election of Trump and issues like Charlottesville, he's eventually going to have to have the discussion with his kids about whether they can be friends with white people or not.

Why is that a conversation he is considering having with his children?

The beauty of children is that they really do not hold any bias or racism in themselves. Those things are a learned behavior. They really do get it from their parents. So when kids meet at school, they see other kids. They don't see white kids or black kids or Hispanic kids, etc. They see kids. Sure, they know that these kids don't all look the same and may not look like them. And they'll ask questions of those kids about their skin color or accents or whatever the case may be. But at the end of the day, they are all going to play together no matter what. As they get older, things may change. But again, this is a learned behavior. 

We are also told on a daily basis that we should not judge an entire group of people based on their "group." Not all Muslims are terrorists. Not all blacks are criminals. Not all Hispanics are illegal aliens. But time again the entire white race is judged as a whole based on a few, and this is not only accepted but encouraged.

So what is this man's kids actually learning? He isn't teaching them to be open minded and accepting. He isn't teaching them to take people at face value and judge them as individuals. He's teaching them that all white people are out to get them... based off of the actions of a small minority of whites. He is teaching his kids that an entire major political party is based on racism because they don't agree with him. 

He's not only pushing a false narrative onto a future generation; he's halting progress. He probably views himself as a "progressive," but teaching your kids hate and fear based off of an arbitrary thing like skin color is not progress. It's not regressive, either. It's stagnant. It forces us as a people, a culture, and a country to stand still. 

I actually agree with him that he should teach his kids to be skeptical of others. I agree with teaching them to not quickly trust everyone. I agree with teaching them to be cautious. But I do not agree with teaching them to be suspicious of everyone or to judge people by their "groups." 

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We as a nation cannot grow and move forward until we learn to take each person as a single entity. We must stop putting everyone in a box and judging them based on that box, or chastising them for getting out of that box. Can your kids be friends with white people? You should encourage them to be. Why? Because bigotry is ended with friendship. When your kid knows one person from a group who isn't, he learns "not all." And his friends from other groups learn the same lesson. 

Stop dividing the country and covering it up as an abundance of caution. It's hatred. It is what you claim to loathe. It is what you claim to be the victim of. And you are grooming your own children for the same victimhood and hatred you yourself have fallen to. 

Instead, encourage that childhood questioning and ignorance of differences. At the end of the day, we're all going to be together because that's how the world works. Your kid will play with any other kid because they are kids, and they don't care about their "groups." Encourage that. Teach your kid that it is OK to ask questions and learn about other cultures and races and religions. But also encourage them to take people at face value. Who is this person in front of you. Not who is the group they belong to, but who are they. What do they believe. How are they treating me. 

My parents always raised me this way. I was told anyone who treated me well was welcome in our home. I brought home friends from every race you can think of. I had friends from a variety of religions. I had friends who wore all black and spiked their hair and wore dog collars as accessories. I had friends who sagged their pants and wore their hats backwards. I had a friend who came over regularly because he loved to play guitar but couldn't afford one and I had two. But as long as they treated me well, my family treated these people like family. Because nothing beyond how they treated me and my family mattered. That is what you should be teaching your kids. Teach them the difference between being treated well and being abused. Your kids will figure out on their own who to hold close and who to get away from, and this lesson will carry them through life. 

​And it won't divide the country any more. It might even start bringing us back together. Imagine that!