{"id":656,"date":"2015-02-04T17:39:33","date_gmt":"2015-02-04T17:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=656"},"modified":"2015-10-13T19:00:55","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T19:00:55","slug":"parents-prepping-kids-for-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2015\/02\/04\/parents-prepping-kids-for-racism\/","title":{"rendered":"Parents Prepping Kids for Racism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charles Blow recently devoted his <\/a>Times<\/a> column to<\/a> relaying the news that his son, a junior at Yale, was racially profiled and detained at gunpoint <\/a>by campus police. Blow mentions that he was glad he had had \u201cthe talk\u201d with his son—how to deal with police as a black man:<\/p>\n

This is the scenario I have always dreaded: my son at the wrong end of a gun barrel, face down on the concrete. I had always dreaded the moment that we would share stories about encounters with the police in which our lives hung in the balance, intergenerational stories of joining the inglorious \u201cclub.\u201d<\/p>\n

When that moment came, I was exceedingly happy I had talked to him about how to conduct himself if a situation like this ever occurred.<\/strong> Yet I was brewing with sadness and anger that he had to use that advice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Blow is not the only parent to impart such advice—recall New York Mayor Bill de Blasio\u2019s controversial comment<\/a> about advising his biracial son in dealings with police. Poor, middle-class<\/a>, and even rich and well-known*\u00a0parents of children of color advise their children on how to stay safe—to thrive, they must survive.<\/p>\n

Scholars call how parents talk to their children about racial discrimination and how to cope with it \u201cpreparation for bias,\u201d and it is just one practice among several that comprise ethnic-racial socialization<\/a>.<\/h5>\n