Back last summer, Claire started making comments about skin color. I said a word in Spanish to her, and she sharply rebuked me: “Don’t say Spanish. Pink people don’t speak Spanish!” I was taken aback. I asked her what skin color people have who speak Spanish, and she replied “Brown skin.” I pointed out that her Aunt Kristen and cousin Penelope speak Spanish very fluently, and they have pink skin. I also pointed out that our friends Sharon, Edu, Torben and Sonia speak German as well as English, and that people of all different skin colors speak different languages.

Still, I found the intensity of her response a little unsettling.

Then, last October, I wrote the following to her preschool teacher as well as to my mentor, Karen, because Claire had ramped up her opinions:

I’m looking for your reflections on a recent development in Claire. She is beginning to sort and classifying things, and in the past few months this has extended to people’s skin color. I’ll share some examples and how we’ve responded. I’m wondering if there is something “more” we could/should do.

Last year in school there were a majority of darker-skinned kids in class — Indian, Chinese, Pakistani, etc. Sometimes Claire said she worried kids would laugh at her because she had the wrong color hair and skin. She played well in general, but this was an occasional comment.

During summer we were doing a craft and I said “por favor” to her. Claire said: “Don’t speak Spanish! Pink people don’t speak Spanish.” I asked her who does, and she replied “brown people.” I reminded her that her Aunt Kristen and cousin Penelope speak Spanish and they are very pink (Caucasian), and also she has other friends who are brown-skinned and speak German. People can speak all types of language. (She has, by the way, taken Let’s Play in Spanish class and also likes to pretend to speak Spanish at times.)

Recently I showed Alex and Claire a photo of an African American baby adopted by a friend. Claire said she didn’t like that baby. Why? Because her skin is too dark. So we talked with her about melanin, and how it’s in everyone’s skin and the amount makes skin color lighter or darker, but that everyone is otherwise the same. We reminded her she has “brown friends” (from Guatemala and Mexico). She said that those friends weren’t very brown.

Same thing happened in a book about getting dressed: she said the didn’t like the girl with the dark skin because “she is not as good as pink.”

The most egregious example happened the other day in Popeye’s. We were eating and a man and little girl came in. The girl looked very slightly Hispanic. A moment after they entered, Claire said, “I don’t like that girl. I want to cover her head with a bag.” I replied sharply to this, telling her what an unkind remark that is. I said I thought the girl looked cute in her ponytail. Claire said, “Well I’m cute too.” I replied: “Not when you say ugly things about the way people look. That takes away from cuteness.” I followed up on how people are all good even when they look different from each other, and that is what makes people especially who they are. The subject got changed and she said nothing more.

Alex and I have talked about how to respond. Claire may be testing the limits of what is socially acceptable to say. She might really feel rejecting of anything different from her. She doesn’t spend a lot of time unsupervised by us, so we can’t imagine she picked this up from other people, and certainly not from us. We don’t want to overreact with attention and thus give her the excitement of having a big deal made over it and her, providing incentive to continue. At the same time, it doesn’t feel appropriate to ignore this, or let such comments pass without discussion (or when they’re really bad, some kind of rebuke). I admit I’m a little worried about her saying such things without us around and people judging me and Alex as a result. I’m also mystified. Can a person just be naturally racist? What’s going on with my sweet daughter?

She’s been doing the same thing about boys since this summer: boys aren’t good, they aren’t as gentle, etc. We’re working on countering this too, as you know. Yet this skin color judgment is really disconcerting.

Your advice is welcome!

The following is the reply from Teacher Carrie:

Thank you for your detailed email. I find this topic very interesting. I would like to first respond by saying I think you are doing a great job handling her comments. Especially when you explained why skin color is different.  I think it’s very important to have the discussion when these issues come up and not to ignore it. Giving a clear, appropriate explanation is good.  I understand your concern and I went through it myself with my daughter.   I then read a book that I think will put your mind at ease. It’s called Nurtureshock, by PO Bronson & Ashley Merryman. Have you heard of it?  I will bring it to class tomorrow. It’s all about nurture vs. nature, with a chapter titled “Why white parents don’t talk about race”, questioning whether we make it worse or better by calling attention to race. I need to reread the chapter, but through their studies they believe that children naturally prefer people who they can most identify with and skin color is one of the things that is clearly visible to children. Gender is also clearly visible to children. After I read it we starting talking with our children more about race & gender.
Lets talk after you read the chapter. I think you will feel a lot better knowing that this is something all children are trying to figure out.
See you tomorrow,
Carrie

And this was Karen’s reply:

First, nothing to worry about.

Claire is demonstrating her developing facility with “critical thinking,” the function of the mind that sorts, labels, analyzes and judges. She can see difference, so there’s no sense trying to convince her that there isn’t a difference. She is probably also exercising this function in ways that are appropriate and even encouraged: having a favorite doll, toy, pair of shoes, clothing, color, song, flavor of ice cream, etc. Four-year-olds can be infuriating in this way because they might refuse to wear anything but favorite colors, clothing and shoes, whether they are appropriate or not. But it is part of self-identification and self-mastery. She’ll move on by age 5.

In this way, yes, “racism” is natural in that we see and categorize and thus respond to things differently. She will be socialized, through school experience, to change the attitudes and expressions that cause other people harm. I can remember that this would be done in group lessons in Georgia’s pre-kindegarten (so age 4-5) when the recognition of different skin color emerges. The teacher used a “persona doll,” a fabric doll with African American or Hispanic features, to play lessons out.

Your explanations are too lofty for her to grasp and although this causes you social discomfort, it is only passing. We are never rid of racism, that is, fear of other people and things who are different than we are, but we learn to keep it to ourselves. If I were you I would mention it to the preschool teacher and see if they have any curriculum to address it. I bet they do, and that way you aren’t putting yourself in an adversarial role.

Georgia had an African American teacher in preschool and Georgia was afraid of him because of his dark skin. He laughed about it to me, saying he understood that all the kids had that difficulty. What a good place and good way to both express it, and to learn otherwise.

Hope this helps.

Maezen

So Alex and I re-read the chapter in Nurtureshock and comforted ourselves a bit that we aren’t alone in this, and that it is normal behavior. However, it continues. Claire has Disney princesses: Snow White, Pocahontas, Belle, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Tiana, Aurora, Jasmine, Ariel, and Mulan. In her pretend play, Claire consistently makes the non-Caucasian princesses — Tiana, Mulan, Pocahontas, and Jasmine — play the “naughty” role, or the role in which they aren’t as smart as the white princesses. I have consistently refused to play the games this way; sometimes she accommodates me, and other times she prefers to play alone with these roles. I try not to push back too hard on this, because Claire is persevering and strong-willed, and my effort is likely to backfire on me and entrench her more firmly against brown skin. I can only hope to keep talking about differences, and how skin color is real but that goodness and badness is not determined by it — and hope over time she comes to understand and accept. Or, at the very least, stops verbalizing it.