The Center for the Study of Biracial Children produces and disseminates materials for and about interracial families and biracial children. The Center provides advocacy, training and consulting. Its primary mission is to advocate for the rights of interracial families, biracial children, and multiracial people. We believe this population has unique needs and challenges not addressed by society's institutions.

Does Race Matter? Responding to Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Schools and Early Childhood Programs

francis July 4th, 2008

by

Francis Wardle, PhD
(Prepared for Red Rocks Community College Week of the Young Child, April, 2008)

In today’s society professionals working with children want to provide what is best for them. This requires them to be culturally responsive in their approach to children and their families. Part of being culturally responsive is to be knowledgeable and sensitive to issues of race and ethnicity. However, this is difficult to do, because there are many contractions in the way we view race and ethnicity in the United States today. These contradictions include,

1.Biologically, race does not exist. The genome project and anthropologists have established beyond a doubt that race does not exist as a biological reality. According to Templeton, (2002), “Human races do not exist under the traditional concept of a subspecies as being a geographically circumscribed population showing genetic differentiation (p. 51). Further, he goes on, “All the genetic evidence shows that there never was a split or separation of the races…..” (p.51)

2.The fastest growing group of children in the US is self-identified as multiethnic and multiracial (Root, 2004). In the 2000 U.S. Census, over 6 million people identified as having two or more races; further, the majority of these were under 18 years old (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2001).

3.As we expand our view of humanity to include other global societies, we discover that their views of race are very different from ours. For example, in Brazil there is a very large number of mixed-race people who identity as mixed-race, and are identified this way by theit government (Carvalho-Silva et al, 2000); in Belize several of the traditional groups of people are, in fact, mixed race (black/Maya Indian; black/British; Carib, etc.)

4.Increased immigration has brought people to this country who do not fit into our broard racial categories, and who do not subscribe to our or traditional view of race and ethnicity. These include,

a.Immigrants from Belize,
b.Immigrants from the Caribbean,
c.Whites from North Africans,
d.Mayas from Central America,
e.Amerindians from Brazil, and other Native Americas from all of the Americas (including Canada and Mexico).

One example of this contradiction is the way the US Census Bureau places Maya Indians into the Latino category. Yet, historically, Latinos are the oppressors of the Maya in Central America (Wardle and Cruz-Janzen, 2004).

5.Many individuals and groups in this society are challenging the broad US census categories. These include,

a.Multiracial and multiethnic peoples;
b.People from the Middle East (viewed by the U.S. Census Bureau as being white);
c.Historical enemies such as the Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, etc, who are all pushed into the Asian category;
d.People who believe that, ultimately, we are all multiracial.

6.The categories are simply too board to be accurate and useful. For example, placing Native Americas, Asians, African Americans, and Europeans all into just one category for each is simply not realistic. Europe today is as multiracial as is the US.

7.Because race has been deconstructed, many writers and theorist are now substituting the word “culture” for race. This maybe is even more problematic, because no group of people is totally homogeneous. For example, to assume all Latinos have the same religion, educate their children in the same way, and speak the same language, is not accurate and not helpful.

However, theorists, psychologists, multicultural educators, and practitioners insist that race and ethnicity are a central component each person’s individual identity; further, that racism in society can have a huge negative impact on a child’s school success. Finally, these writers and experts insist that much of this problem is due to white control of our major societal institutions, including our early childhood programs schools. Thus they view a colorblind approach to race and ethnicity in our schools, early childhood programs, and other institutions as a racist, pro-white view (Neito, 2004; York, 2003).
Given all of these contradictions, what are professionals who work with diverse populations of children supposed to do? Should we go back to the colorblind approach? Should we lump all children and their families into the broad 5 US Census Bureau categories and them treat them as members of these large, sociological groups?
Below are some ideas to assist professionals who work with diverse populations of children, from early childhood though college. These suggestions are designed to maximize the educational success of each child, regardless of his/her racial and/or ethnic backgrounds.

Start With the Child or Adult

We must always start with the individual child. We must never begin with a racial or ethnic group, or a cultural perspective; and we must never automatically assign a child with the characteristics or attributes assumed to be stereotypical of a group. Further, we must not take time and energy to learn about racial, ethnic or cultural groups. What we should do is learn about individual children, their families, communities and other important ecological contexts (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).

Don’t Use the Board US Census Categories

The broad U.S. Census Bureau categories, American Indian or Alaskan Native; Asian or Pacific Islander; Hispanic; Black, not Hispanic; and While not Hispanic, should not be used in addressing diversity, because,

They are inaccurate
They are much, much too board to be useful in any way, and thus can be damaging
They are not global in any way
They tend to reinforce stereotypes
They deny multiracial and multiethnic child authentic identity and belonging

They are government-sponsored approaches to classifying people. Historically, Nazi Germany and South Africa were the two counties most fixated on racial classifications, for obvious reasons; now it is the US. Many early childhood diversity books even provide activities based on these 5 groups! Where is a dark-skinned child from Bangladesh supposed to fit – in the same group as a light-skinned boy from Japan? What about a Mayan child from the Highlands of Guatemala, and a child from Brazil? I have often discussed how destructive these activities are for multiracial and multiethnic children. (Wardle & Curz-Janzen, 2004). These activities are extremely destructive, and do more to destroy diversity than to honor it!

A Child’s Race/Ethnicity Does Matter!

Each of us has created in our minds a complex identity based on the interaction between many characteristics (West, 2001). These characteristics include, family, income, language, ability and disability, religion, gender, community, and race and ethnicity (Wardle, 1996). It is critical that professionals working with children – teachers, child care providers, social workers, psychologists and others – help children develop a secure and accurate identity, and then a sense of pride and respect of that identity. This obviously is not a colorblind approach; however, it’s also not an approach that claims the child’s only significant identity characteristics are his/her race or ethnicity. Here are some ways to use this approach while working with children.

Take Cues From the Child and His/Her Family

Let the child and his/her family inform you about the values, behaviors, beliefs and assumptions important to them. How does the child acknowledge and celebrate his skin color and nation of origin? How do parents want his first language to be acknowledged? How does the family support the child’s race and ethnicity outside the school or child care program?

Focus on Diversity of Diversity

It is a well-known fact that there is much, much more human diversity within any large group than between two groups, whether the group is based on gender, race, ethnicity, income, age, ability, profession, national origin, and so on. We must focus on this diversity and also make sure that we do not allow the membership of a child within any traditional US category (whatever, it is – disability, race, gender, income, religion, and so on) to in any way limit that child’s choices or potential.

Integrate Race, Ethnicity and Other Factors

All the factors that make us a child’s identity – race, ethnicity, language, personality, income, gender, family structure, and so on – should be integrated throughout the curriculum. Do not use a tourist approach; do not use a curriculum by celebration approach, either. These approaches are not inclusive and are not developmental.

Always View the Whole Child

Do not engage in what is called essentialism – just focusing on a few components of a child’s full identity (Fish, 2002). Always look not only at all the aspects that make-up the child’s identity, but also look at the sum of the parts –the Gestalt – rather than the individual pieces added together. Some of these various pieces that make up the whole child, include,

Race, ethnicity and culture
Ability and disability
Languages
Country of origin
Religion, and how often and intensely it is practiced
Family and community values
Likes and dislikes
Dispositions
Community and neighborhood
Family structure and compositions
Schools and early childhood programs

Martha West reminds us that children construct their own meanings of their unique realities (2001). This includes their social and contextual reality. Teachers must support this effort by each child. Provide multiple opportunities for children to explore their own unique factors, and the integration of these factors into their overall Gestalt. There are many activities that can assist in this process, depending on the age of the child. These include, painting, music, dance, dress-ups, dramatic play, face painting and hair care, looking at picture books, reading (and being read to), crafts, writing songs, writing personal journals, painting murals, and creating literary and photographic records of the community. Various technology projects, from biographies and families histories, to photographic documentaries and creating a website, can be created by older children. Parent volunteers, adult role models, and visits to museums, libraries, and so on, are also effective ways to assist children in this important identity development process.

Do Not Impose Your Ideas of Race/Ethnicity on the Child

Never, ever, impose your idea of race or ethnicity on a child. This includes forcing that child to select a specific federal racial category. Do not prejudge any child’s racial or ethnic identity, and do not expect certain behaviors, attitudes or values, based on those prejudgments. Allow the child – and his family- to define him/herself, and to define his/her own values, dispositions, likes and dislikes, and behaviors. Cleary this mandate also includes children with multiple identities (multiethnic and multiracial), and those who do not fit neatly into the US census categories, for whatever reason. It is not our job to define a child or to determine that child’s behaviors, predispositions, and world-view. This does not mean that the child does not have racial, ethnic and cultural attributes that impact his/her behavior and learning. But it means that we must follow the child’s (and the family’s) lead.

Do not make assumptions about a child’s race or ethnicity, and do not make assumptions about the child based on these labels.

Teach More than One Language

It is interesting to note the number of early childhood experts who strongly argue for bilingual programs in our schools (Neito, 2004; York, 2003). All these recommendations are for program to teach the child’s home language and English. However, these same experts never advocate for a second language to be taught to English speaking students, beginning in preschool. To be truly diverse we must do so; further, that second language should be one of the world’s major languages, not just Spanish. These would include Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, and French. A full immersion approach should be used (Wardle, 2005); and the instruction should be continued vertically throughout the curriculum.

Evaluate Curricula and Policies

All policies, procedures, curricular content, curricular materials, and activities should be carefully evaluated to determine if they are good for all children, and not just for specific group of children. Ideas to consider in his evaluation include, use of all of Gardner’s 8 learning styles (1983), use of field dependent and field independent approaches to learning, cooperative and individual activities and projects, hands-on learning, technology leaning, and abstract, symbolic learning. Differentiation for gifted students, special needs students, and twice exceptional students must also be integral to the curriculum and various activities. These changes, adaptations and new approaches should not be designed for groups of children, but rather for individual children.

Conclusion

Race as a construct is currently being deconstructed. As a result, responding to children and their families as members of broad racial or ethnic categories is inappropriate. Rather, we must, 1) always begin with the individual child and his/her family, 2) view race as one of the child’s many ecological contexts (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), and 3) understand that children actively construct their own reality, including their racial and ethnic identity West, 2001).

We must never respond to a child as a member of a racial or ethnic group; rather, we must respond to the child as a unique individual with a dynamic identity that includes, but is not limited to, race and ethnicity. Our goal is to provide the best possible environments, curricula, activities and interactions for all children we serve.

References

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). Context of child reading: Problems and prospect. American psychologist, 34-844-850.

Carvalho-Silva, D. R., Santos, F. R., Rocha, J., & Pena, D. J. (2000). The phylogeography of Brazilian Y-Chromosome Lineages. American Journal of Human Genetics (68). Report

Fish, J. M. (Ed.). Race and intelligence. Separating science from myth. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.

Nieto, S. (2004). Affirming diversity. The sociopolitical context of multicultural education (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon

Root, M. P. P (2004). Forward. In, F. Wardle and M.I. Cruz-Janzen, Meeting the needs of multiethnic and multiracial children in schools (p. vii). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Templeton, A. R. The genetic and evolutionary significance of human races. In, J. M. Fish (Ed.), Race and Intelligence: Separating science for myth (pp. 31-56). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

U.S. Bureau of the Census. (2001, March). Census 2000 shows American’s diversity. Washington, DC: Author

Wardle, F. (1996). Proposal: An anti-bias and ecological model for multicultural education . Childhood Education, 72 (3) 152-156.

Wardle, F. (2005). Language immersion programs for young children. In, B. Neugebauer (Ed.) Literacy: A beginnings workshop book (pp 53-56). Redmond, WA: Exchange Press.

Wardle, F., & Cruz-Janzen, M. I. (2004). Meeting the needs of multiethnic and multiracial children in schools. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

West, M. M (2001). Teaching the third culture child. Young Children, 56 (6), 27-32.

York, S. (2003). Roots and Wings: Affirming culture in early childhood programs (Rev. ed.). St. Paul, MN: Redleaf Press.

Multicultural and Multilingual Education in Early Childhood (infants to age 8) Programs

francis February 10th, 2008

by

Francis Wardle, PhD

In my writings, both here and in articles and books that I have written, I am very critical of the current approach to multicultural education taught to early childhood and k-12 teachers. This approach is directly presented in a variety of textbooks, articles, and conference sessions, and is embedded within a vast array of child development, education, psychology and sociology textbooks.

As a critic of the current multicultural orthodoxy, it is my responsibility to present an alternative view. This alternative view is presented in the enclosed document, which was developed for a book on early childhood approaches that was requested by a publisher. The publisher later cancelled the book, so I am including a chapter from the book here. Feel free to use it for instructional purposes without having to get permission first.

Click here to access the manuscript.

Escola Estrela do Mar

francis January 9th, 2008

by

Francis Wardle, PhD

A few miles beyond the brilliant white beaches and cobalt blue ocean of Maceio, a tourist mecca on the Brazilian NE coast, is Escola Estrela do Mar (the Star Fish School). This store-front school sits next to a noisy local freight train that runs alongside a road. The road is shaded by huge tropical trees. Stretching up a steep bank behind the school is a motley collection of shacks and dilapidated homes that make up this favela. The green banana palms, flowering trees and colorful washing hanging out to dry, masks the harshness and depravity of this poverty.

Twenty-seven children, age 4 to 8 years, attend the school. In numbers and physical size the school is small. But in hopes and dreams it is huge!

All the children come from local favela families. All these families are very poor, many have no fathers, and some lack both biological parents. Drug abuse, teen pregnancy, alcoholism, and domestic violence are common. All the children are children of color - various shades of brown, with tight, curly hair - the girls in carefully woven plaits - what the Brazilians call mulato (mixed European-Black) and moreno.

Need for the School
The school is the dream-child of Washington, DC raised David, and his Sao Paolo wife, Claudia. Their dream is to prove to the Brazilian establishment – particularly the educational establishment – that low-income children of color can be educated and can succeed.

On my last visit to Brazil in November 2007, David and Claudia invited me to visit their school to observe and provide some professional feedback regarding their methods, approaches, and practices. I had the pleasure of meeting them and observing in the school. In my real life I am a professor of education

Brazil provides free public education to elementary-age children. And recently the federal government passed a law that pays (very little) parents when their children attend the local school. But, based on my experience visiting a variety of local public schools in several Brazilian states and cities, the quality of these schools is from poor to horrendous. In many cases three separate sessions are provided within the same building each day (thus the children attend about 3 hours-a-day), the teachers are often very over-worked and demoralized, there are little if any basic resources, and the only teaching method is direct instruction to large classes.

And these are schools that receive most of the federal dollars allotted to them. In Alagoas state, where Escola Estrela do Mar is located, most of the money never ever gets to the schools. It ends up in an ongoing nightmare of government corruption.

Dream School
With this educational backdrop and the context of abject poverty and racism, David and Claudia are running their dream school. It’s not an idea, a pie in the sky dream, or a utopian social plan; it’s a three-year reality.

Their effort reminds me of Dr. Maria Montessori’s Casa di Bambini. This was the school she established in the slums of Rome. She was asked by city officials to educate children from the slums, whom the educational establishment had deemed “uneducatable”.

While much of Europe and the US believe that all children can benefit from a free, public education – note the IDEA act in the US that requires children with disabilities to receive an equal education – many developing countries reserve their best educational effort (in money and human capitol) to educating children the society believes can succeed and contribute most. In Brazil these children tend to be middle class and wealthy children of European descent.

David and Claudia believe otherwise, and have set out to prove their beliefs to the world. And, just like Maria Montessori, they way well succeed!

Escola Estrela do Mar
On entering the school I am greeted by heat and noise! The very small area reverberates with children’s voices, and reflects the heat of a NE Brazilian midday. The classrooms are small and cramped. But the children are eagerly trying to follow the teachers and learn; the teachers eager to teach. There are quick smiles, verbal and physical praise, and lots of encouragement “to try again!”

I visit a computer lab, English class, and a class in ecology. The school also teaches math, science, Portuguese, history, swimming and character education. They will be adding art, music and dance. And the school provides three healthy meals each day. On a regular basis field trips are taken to expose the children to the world beyond their favela and to show them a variety of professional and skilled occupations and role models; further, professionals and tradesmen visit the school to talk to the students and encourage their learning.

At the back of the school is a very small area for playing games – mostly the favorite of most Brazilian children – futebol.

The teachers have the required college training. But, much more importantly to David and Claudia, they have the enthusiasm needed to be good teachers, and they possess a deep belief that these children can and will succeed.

New School Building
Later that day I have the pleasure of visiting the new school building. This building, to be opened in 2008, has a totally opposite feeling from the current school – large, open, cool, serene, and nestled between a variety of trees and shrubs.

Like most Brazilian schools and NGOs, the center of the building is a large, outdoor courtyard. All classrooms, labs and other rooms feed into this open area. It will be the children’s playground.

At the back and on the two sides of the building are gardens, trees, shrubs and open spaces. These areas will all be used for a variety of ecological, nature and science education, along with growing vegetables and fruits for consumption by the children. The children will be able to enjoy the wonderful outdoors that is one of the rich resources of Brazil.

When the school moves to the new building the student population will increase to over 100 children. But the challenges will not be erased. These include,

· Finding additional financial support to make the school sustainable;
· Convincing local educators and business leaders of the integrity of the school;
· Crystallizing an educational approach that combines high academic rigor and expectations with the arts and ecological equation;
· Integrating more child-directed and child-centered learning into the overall instructional approach;
· Formalizing their approach to parent involvement;
· Integrating local and Brazilian culture – including Amerindian and Afro-Brazilian culture, into the curriculum;
· Providing quality, ongoing training for the teaching staff;
· Creating formal and informal relationships with both Brazilian and US schools of higher education – with internships, classroom volunteers, and possibly study-abroad exchange programs resulting;
· Instituting an ongoing research project.

These challenges are extreme. Yet David, Claudia and the staff seem up to the task. I support their efforts and will watch their progress with anticipation.

Why Diversity Experts Hate the Multiracial Movement

francis August 3rd, 2007

Why Diversity Experts Hate the Multiracial Movement

By

Francis Wardle

For some time I have been very confused with the total lack of inclusion of multiracial and multiethnic children and their families by so-called diversity experts. In my Hall of Fame/Hall of Shame column, I describe a © 2008 book, whose subtitle is, honoring differences, that totally ignores the topic (Gonzalez-Mena). I am publishing an article in the Early Childhood Education Journal in which I reviewed child development college textbooks with copyright dates of 2004 and later. The article shows that only 2 of the twelve books that I reviewed address multiracial and multiethnic children in any detail (Wardle, in press). Recently another © 2008 book on diversity for k -12 teachers came across my desk (Spadlin & Parsons). It too totally ignores the topic.

How can books that claim to honor differences totally ignore multiethnic and multiracial children? In the introduction to Diversity in Early Care and Education: Honoring Differences (2008), Janet Gonzalez-Mena states, “this book is about honoring and respecting diversity” (p. ix). Later, ironically, she uses the heading, What Are the Effects of Being Ignored?
Yet her book, along with almost all diversity books, articles and conference presentations about diversity, totally ignore the over 6.8 million children and adults who self-identified as mixed-race in the last U. S. Census.

What’s going on here? It seems to me there are three fundamental reasons that multicultural and diversity experts hate the entire mixed-race concept: 1) they view society as a salad bowl of culturally distinct groups, 2) they are myopically American in their view of diversity, with no understanding of diversity outside of our borders, and 3) their view of social justice requires a single race/ethnicity view of the world.

Tossed Salad

Jane Gonzalez-Mena presents a scenario in her book in which babies are cared for by their Japanese mothers and European-American (white) caregivers. She then writes, “Think about what might happen if the babies were handled some of the time by European-American [white] mothers and some of the time by Japanese mothers……. instead of becoming bicultural, they might become confused about how they are supposed to be. If this is the case the environments with the foreign mothers might be called culturally assaultive” (p. 15 –16).

Bingo! The old, “they will be confused” stereotype!

Diversity experts deeply believe that each individual is the product of a group – what William Cross calls reference group orientation. The great psychologist Erikson also discussed this issue when he examined identity development during adolescence, and described the functions of in-group and out-group belonging. If our race, ethnicity, gender and other identities are defined by the groups we associate and hang around with, as diversity experts believe, then what is the reference group of multiracial children? They simply don’t have one!

However, because the biological basis of race and ethnicity has been debunked by the genome project, diversity experts now talk about cultural groups. To this end Janet Gonzalez-Mena has a section in her book on African American culture, Chinese culture, Hispanic culture (Latino culture), Japanese culture, Russian culture, and so on. Further, because these experts are about “honoring differences” they see a need to improve the self-esteem of children from diverse cultural backgrounds. And to do this they advocate elevating the stature and respect of each minority cultural group. Some years ago the Sesame Street TV program for preschool children presented a series of programs on diversity – known as the Race Project. It soon became evident to me that all of the diversity included in the program was about same-race and ethnicity. So I called the main researcher for the program, who admitted as much. She then declared that including multiracial and multiethnic concepts in this view of diversity “was just too complicated” (Wardle, 1994).

If we are going to look at each specific cultural group and encourage the separate empowerment of each group, as diversity experts do, then including multiracial and multiethnic children requires us to look at all the various combination of each of these groups - and this is, “much too difficult to do!”

It should be noted here, as a matter of intellectual honesty, that the group approach to diversity - African Americans, Latinos, Russians etc., - is a highly non-diverse approach! Lets just take Brazilians, who are often lumped in under Hispanics, until people understand that not only do they speak Portuguese, but also that the Spanish are their historical enemies! Further, Brazil’s population is made-up of Afro-Brazilians, Amerindians (of many different tribes), Europeans (German, Portuguese, Italians, Scandinavian, etc); Middle Eastern, and Japanese, along with a rich and acknowledged mixture of all of these populations.

American View of Diversity

Just yesterday I read an article that claimed the US is the most multicultural of all nations. This is not only untrue – particularly if we consider multiracial and multiethnic identities as part of diversity - but it is also a typically American view of the rest of the world (we always must be the best of everything!). Several weeks ago there was an article in our local paper about race and racism in Brazil. It was very critical of the racism in contemporary Brazilin society; but of most interest was the belief expressed by the writer that Brazil should address this problem in exactly the same way that we in America are doing (as if we have solved the problem of racism in our country!)

There are many countries that have a rich history of embracing multiracial and multiethnic people. Because of my own experiences, Brazil comes to mind. There are many others! But, because our history includes the one-drop rule (to prevent children of slaves and slave-owners from becoming free), diversity experts expect all other countries to follow this single -race approach to diversity. It is edifying to note that not only has Brazil never had the one-drop rule, but their laws regarding children of slaves and slave owners were very different from ours.

Another ironic twist to this American myopia is the Hispanic/Latino view. When I mentioned the Hispanic ethnic group to a researcher studying the origins of race in Brazil, he calmly replied, “ah yes, that is an American invention”. As I have pointed out already, in Brazil people of Spanish heritage belong to the European group: Brazil’s ruling class. In most of Latin America (Mexico, Guatemala, Columbia, Peru, Bolivia), the ruling class is Latino, and the lower classes Native Americans.

This myopic view of diversity prevents American multicultural experts from recognizing the narrow-mindedness of a single-race and ethnicity view of diversity. They simply see diversity through a single-race prism. While there are composers, authors, architects and inventors from the world over who celebrate their multiracial identity, we in this country still insist on a single-race identity, which must be the identity of the minority parent, or parent of lowest status.

Social Justice and Critical Theory

Postmodern views of all things academic have taken over our colleges and universities. This is particularly true of departments of race, ethnicity, and diversity. Within the field of racial studies, this view is represented by a struggle between the haves and the have-nots, the oppressors and the oppressed, the privileged and the non-privileged. Experts in this field therefore study diversity in terms of power: who has it, who doen’t have it, and how those who have it keep down those who do not. They view those in power as dominating and abusing those without power, and consider schools and early childhood programs to be agents of the oppressor.

While this is a neat sociological model for looking at race in society, any discussion of multiracial identity – especially if a part of that person’s heritage is white - obviously destroys this entire concept! If a person’s heritage is black and white, which group do they belong to? Since the theory of hypodescent has a strict hierarchy of race and status – from white to black - (as does the critical theory view of gender, disability, sexual orientation, etc), any recognition of a multiracial or multiethnic person totally upsets these neat formals.
Conclusion

Universally multicultural and diversity experts ignore multiracial and multiethnic children and people as part of the diversity community. This is astonishing to me, until I examine the theoretical prisms through which these experts see the world, and see the world of diversity in particular. There are three central reasons why multiracial and multiethnic identity is not included within the diversity construct: viewing multicultural society as a salad bowl of distinct, autonomous ethnic and racial groups (as a reaction to the dreaded melting pot), 2) viewing diversity from a single, myopic American (US) perspective that does not recognize how the rest of the world views and practices diversity, and 3) relying on a critical theory approach to societal change that requires each race and ethnic group (along with gender, disability, economic class and sexual orientation) to be a distinctively separate entity within a power-oppressed hierarchy. What is most disturbing about this reality is that it shows diversity experts lack the ability to think critically, creativity, and outside of traditional ideas and concepts. It is, by definition, intellectually very conservative.

References

Gonzalez-Mena, J. (2008). Diversity in Early care and education: Honoring differences. (5th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill Companies.

Spradlin, L. K., & Parson, R.D. (2008). Diversity matters: Understanding diversity in schools. Belmont, CA: Thompson Higher Education.

Wardle (1994). What about other children in the neighborhood? New People. 4 (5), 10-19.

Wardle, F. (In press). Multiracial and multiethnic children in child development textbooks. Early Childhood Education Journal.

Hall of Fame/Hall of Shame

francis March 12th, 2007

This ever-expanding column will highlight organizations, individuals and publications that support our struggle to empower multiracial and multiethnic children and their families, and those that do not. Obviously the Hall of Fame will include those that I believe are affirmative; the Hall of Shame those that object, devalue, or impede our struggle.

Hall of Fame

My People Are…….Youth Pride in Mixed Heritage, a new film (CD) and training document developed and produced by the Multiethnic Education Program (see links).

The film is a fast moving, colorful, well produced presentation by a wonderfully diverse group of multiracial and single-race adolescents. The focus of the film is the need to adjust our thinking – especially in our schools and our curricula – to change to meet the many needs of the ever-increasing number of multiethnic and multiracial children in schools. Further, the film continually challenges our societal, academic and often human need to place all people into 5 singe-race, arbitrarily constructed “racial boxes”.

Each adolescent reports struggles they have had with people unwilling to acknowledge and celebrate their full heritage and identity; further, many talk about pride in their full racial background, and also the discovery of parts of their background denied to them through a single-race approach to identity.

This exploration of pride in mixed-heritage is conducted through group activates, dance, many individual expressions of frustration and hope, and symbolic use of boxes and other props. The target audience is other adolescents – of all races and ethnicities – but this training CD and brochure works for training teachers, in service training, college classes, multiracial activities and conferences, and local support groups. Psychologists, school psychologists, social workers and counselors would also greatly benefit from the training.

Finally, at several times throughout the film, students ask the provocative question, “but why can’t we just be part of the human race?”

Hall of Shame

Diversity in Early Care and Education: Honoring Differences (5th ed), by Janet Gonzalez-Mena. Published by McGraw-Hill, 2008.

This book, as the title implies, is supposed to honor differences. It’s a book for people preparing to be teachers of young children (age infant to 3rd grade). It covers race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and language diversity. But as far as I can tell it totally and absolutely misses anyone of multiracial or multiethnic heritage. It also seems to me to lack any international perspective (almost all diversity texts are hopelessly and myopically American in focus).

In the introduction for the book the author claims that it is inappropriate to structure a book on diversity into traditional groups such as African American, Hispanic, etc., and that this approach denies the “diversity within diversity”. Yet these very groups – and others, such as “Chinese culture”, “Latino culture”, “Japanese culture”, “Lakota and Navaho culture” (Dine) etc., are liberally scattered throughout the index (there are 10 listings under African American culture alone).Yet, for the life of me, I cannot find interracial, biracial, mixed-race, multiethnic, multiethnic, etc., anywhere in the book. And I’ve tried!

What’s worse is that the author has made the popular shift from race to culture: now it’s the African American culture; the Hispanic culture, the Lakota culture. Anyone who personally knows more than one African American and more than one Latino knows that placing everyone in one box is stereotypical at best, and racist at worst.

There are many problems with this book’s view of diversity, mainly its stereotypical view of people and cultures, and its belief that only white folks can do wrong, and minorities can do no wrong. But my issue here has to do with a total lack of any information for child care providers and teachers about how to work effectively with interracial and interethnic families and their children. None!

But why no mention of mixed-race? I just talked to a young lady today whose mother is Portuguese and father Indian (Asian), who grew up in Malaysia. This is not at all uncommon, especially outside of America, yet under Ms Gonzalez-Mena’s view of diversity, this lady and the millions like her don’t exist (or are marginal). How is this “honoring differences?”

Teaching Tolerance Magazine, published by the Southern Law Poverty Center.

Many of you are probably aware of this magazine, devoted to schools and teachers. It has an excellent reputation for providing teachers with materials and activities to enable them to explore all kinds of diversity in their classrooms.

Except mixed-race diversity!

For several years I communicated with the editor of Teaching Tolerance. I was interested in publishing an article that celebrated multiracial identity, advocated for the rights of children and parents to self-identify as mixed, and to challenge this country’s fixation on a single-race view of everyone – including the almost fanatical adherence to the use of the federal forms in schools. I wrote several pieces (I have worked with multiracial adolescents, and have raised my own four children), so I know something about the issues multiracial and multiethnic students face in our schools.

But no, he would never approve publishing anything this hard-hitting, and I finally gave up!

Even when the new forms were developed for the 2000 census,
Teaching Tolerance was very lukewarm about their creation, and gave lots of space for people who felt self-identification of mixed-race children would somehow weaken the fight for justice of single-race groups in this country (a very popular theme in many circles).

It is very clear to me that, while Teaching Tolerance does a wonderful job of providing resources and ideals to help teachers address a range of singe-race and other single-concept diversity issues, they have not progressed to a deep understanding of the destructive force of demanding that multiracial children select only part of their heritage, and they truly do not understand any multidimensional diversity issues. Finally, they seem beholden to single-race advocates, and are unwilling to challenge the pervasive orthodoxy of the single-race view of culture and diversity so prevalent in this country, our schools and colleges.

Racism in Brazilian Schools

francis December 26th, 2006

By Francis Wardle

I am visiting a public school in one of the many suburbs that circumscribe the federal city of Brasilia. In Brazil the wealthy and middle-class live in town (or, as in Brasilia, in satellite towns), the poor live in the suburbs. Thus, this is a poor elementary school. The principal greets me enthusiastically, and I watch the children’s morning exercises and singing – lead by the teachers. The school serves 5, 6 and 7 year-old children. After the initial activity, all the children gather in a large area with one side totally open to the elements – and to people from the community who gather to enjoy the upcoming presentation. On the stage there is a set of a castle; to its left is a woman with a guitar. After one of the 4 actors gives a short introductory speech, the action begins.

The play is a collection of vignettes taken from a variety of popular fairy tales, including Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and many others. Between each scene the women plays her guitar and sings a beautiful song. Many of the teachers join in the chorus; apparently it’s a well known song. Large puppets that are attached to the actor’s bodies and feet provide the action. There are also a few props, including a ship (for the pirate), a beautiful, blue butterfly, and some cute green bugs. The presentation is very well done, and captivates the children, even though it is quite long by American standards.

While I watch the action on the set, I am really more interested in watching the children. They are a rich combination of browns – brown skin and brown hair. The girls have their hair arranged in a variety of styles: tight braids held with colorful barrettes, curly hair loosely framing their faces, and two simply braids. All the children have big, brown eyes, and enthusiastic, open faces.

The plot is the old standby of a beautiful princess looking for a husband. She is visited by a variety of suitors, including a black prince who is quite ugly and engages in very stereotypical behavior - dancing and being silly. Finally the princess chooses a pirate to marry, so that she can travel around the world.

While the presentation is extremely well done, and the children and teachers (and community members) really enjoy it, I am shocked by the racism. The princess is a beautiful white woman with long, blond hair, and big, sad blue eyes. She ends up marrying a white pirate with blue eyes.

As we continue to tour the school I notice the four actors sitting together on a bench. Since I am doing research on Brazilian schools and race in Brazil, I muster the courage to ask my translator if he would pose a question to the actors for me. He asks my question:

“All of the little girls watching the play have beautiful brown skin, brown hair and brown eyes. Why did you make the princess a blue-eyed blond? Why did you tell each of these young girls that they couldn’t be a princess?” (I could have added, “and why did you tell each of the boys they could not be a successful suitor?”)

They gave me several answers:

1) In the four years we have given this presentation, you are the first person to ask this question.

2) We tried to change the traditional fairly tales. This is why we included a Negro (black) prince, and why the princess selected a pirate, so she could travel and see the world.

3) This princess is the symbol of female beauty in Brazil.

According to Gilmar, my translator, they were quite upset with my question. I was quite perturbed and appalled by their answers.

Is Diversity Only Single Races?

francis November 24th, 2006

By Francis Wardle, PhD

For the first time in a long while, the 2000 census allowed respondents to check “more than one race”. Over 6.8 million people (2.4%) made this choice - many of them people less than 18 years of age. Based on this information, one would assume that college textbooks and journals that explore diversity, tolerance, and ethnic sensitivity, would cover issues around multiracial children in great detail.

But no!

All the books and journals that I have recently looked at view diversity only in single-race terms. I teach child psychology, human development, and early childhood development, so I have many opportunities to address this issue. I am also always reviewing new textbooks to determine whether I need to change the books I use in my classes. Recently I reviewed ten books with 2004, 2005 and 2006 copyrights dates. But none of these books explore issues of multiracial identity, mixed-race children, and interracial families – including families with adopted multiracial children. A book entitled, Early Childhood Development: A Multicultural Approach (4th ed.)(2006) by Jeffrey Trawick-Smith, does not even include the words “multiracial”, “biracial” or “interracial” in its index! And this is a multicultural text! The book, Childhood: Voyages in Development (2nd ed.)(2006) by S. A. Rathus, claims, “Latino and Latina Americans …may be white, Black or Native American” (p. 26). Everyone knows that most Hispanic Americans are Mestizo – Indian and European – and many are multiracial (with some Black heritage)(Banks and Banks, 2004). And, while the entire November/December, 2005 issue of Young Children – the journal of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, is devoted to diversity, there is no mention anywhere in its pages about children with a multicultural or multiethnic identity (although more than 50% of the journal is dedicated to Latino/a children and family issues).

What’s going on here?

Why do textbooks and journals that address diversity refuse to include multiethnic and multiracial children? Why are academics who write about diversity fixated on seeing diversity only through a single-race prism? Since none of these authors actually mention multiracial children, they obviously do not discuss their reasons for omitting them. The closest statement I have found about the issue is in the book, Multicultural Education: Issues and Perspectives (5th ed), by James and Cherry Banks. In this book the authors write, “In the United States, where racial categories are well defined and highly inflexible, an individual with any acknowledged or publicly known African ancestry is considered Black” (page 18). The book has a copyright date of 2004; James Backs is considered “the father of multicultural education.”

So, since these authors do not tell us why they omit the fastest growing population of children in this country, I am left to come up with my own explanations.

Ignorance
Many writers of psychology, child development, and early childhood textbooks have no understanding of race and ethnicity. For example, many still claim that race is a biological construct and that people of the same race have the same biological characteristics (both are untrue); many believe that people of the same ethnic group must have the same religious background, home language, and universally common cultural values. We know there is more genetic and cultural diversity within groups than between them; for example, while my wife is considered African American, she is also an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Indian tribe, and she was raised Catholic.

One cannot expect writers who do not underhand race and ethnicity to understand multiracial and multiethnic concepts!

Group Think
Academics have totally adopted the notion of group politics. They insist on talking about ethnic and racial groups: African American, Asian, Hispanic, Native American, and white. They refuse to write about individuals. This is a direct result of the powerful influence in academia of sociology, sociology of education, cultural sociology, and social psychology. These disciplines focus solely on groups. The current thinking is that the only way to create change in this society and the world is through groups. And the more powerful the group, the more it has a chance to change society. Today’s academics do not believe individuals can impact societal change. An outgrowth of this belief is that anyone who weakens the power of a group weakens the ability of that group to produce positive social and political change. This is the explanation for the often bitter attracts on black conservatives; it is also the reason why academics insist on supporting the one-drop rule.

Political Correctness
It is not politically correct to acknowledge and celebrate multiracial identity in colleges and universities. I have a multiracial colleague who is a college professor. Her heritage includes African and Puerto Rican. When she is involved with Black groups in her university, she is harassed whenever she speaks in Spanish; when in the Hispanic faculty groups she is put-down when she brings up issues of concern for other minority groups, such as Indians and blacks. Group loyalty is vindictive and extreme (note the attracts by certain blacks on Clarence Thomas and Condoleezza Rice). The belief is that only though group loyalty can underrepresented groups gain any power in this country. And anyone who celebrates their multiracial heritage - particularly if it includes their white background - is ‘sleeping with the enemy’.

Racial Divide
Multiracial and multiethnic children are the product of interracial and interethnic relationships. Academics seem to feel that recognizing these children as multiracial means that racism no longer exists. And the power of racial politics is based on racism. Thus academics are unwilling to recognize that, at least on a personal level, racial antagonism and hatred have in some cases been overcome. They believe that those of us who marry interracially are “colorblind” (a term I have often been accused of), and that being colorblind is a dangerous denial of racial hatred in this country and a diffusion of the power to create change.

It has always puzzled me that those of us who advocate for multiracial identity and recognition are accused of believing racism no longer exists. As a white man with a black wife and four beautiful multiracial children, I am extremely aware of the level of racism that still exists in this country!

The One-Drop Rule
The one-drop rule (anyone with any black heritage is black) was a racist rule created by the white ruling class to enforce the Jim Crow laws of the post Civil War era. After all, if you have one set of laws for white people, and one for black people, you then need a way to determine who is white and who is black. Later this law was expanded for all practical purposes to include any person of color; if a person’s heritage included more than one minority background, the rule of hypodescent applied (a person must accept the single identity of their heritage with the lowest status).

But today this racist rule is used to assert that anyone with any minority heritage must only identify with his/her minority background. This rule is accepted as the truth by all experts in diversity, multiculturalism and tolerance.

Unwilling to Change
Curiously, when it comes to understanding race and identity, academics are the last to be able to change. As I have mentioned in many of my articles, average people and interracial support groups are way ahead of academics in understanding that racial identity in this country has changed over the last 40 years. When it comes to race, academics are bent on maintaining the status quo because it serves their political and scholarly agendas. While they will come up with all sorts of rationalization for this, based on the evil white society, they steadfastly support an arbitrary government-imposed system of racial and ethnic labels. Naomi Zack has written convincingly about this intractability of academics who study race and racism. And the more liberal the academic, the more conservative they are in wanting to maintain rigid racial borders.

What Should We Do?
First, we must deeply understand the reluctance and even obstruction of the academic community in supporting the idea of a multiracial identity. Second, we must understand that when it comes to issues of race and ethnicity, academics are almost always wrong. Thirdly, we must own our own movement and our own growth and development, and not allow academics to define our issues and frame our progress. And finally, we must insist that at all levels – school forms, psychology theories, special education placement, social worker misinformation etc., our children have a right to celebrate their full multiracial identity, and that interracial parents have a right and responsibility to raise their children with pride in and acknowledgement of their full genetic, cultural and personal heritage. These issues are not open to debate, academic or otherwise.

Conclusion
Diversity and multicultural education are hot topics in academia. There are college departments for ethnic and cultural studies, classes for students, degrees devoted solely to ethnic studies, and regional, national and international conferences, scholarly journals, magazines, and textbooks all devoted to this topic. And all the content areas of psychology, education, sociology, anthology and early childhood educational address this topic; the disciplines of research, planning, demographics and other areas also cover diversity and multiculturalism in depth. Naturally, people believe that these purveyors of diversity and multiculturalism will be sympathetic and supportive of issues faced by multiracial people and children, including creating and maintaining a positive multiracial identity. But they are not. Advocates of diversity and multicultural education see diversity as the acceptance and tolerance of single-race and ethnic groups. They don’t support interracial families and multiracial children; some are even opposed in interracial marriage.

Thus it is left up to us – the newly emerged and ever-strengthening multiracial community - to advocate for ourselves and our children – in schools, on federal forms, in social work caseloads and in special education classes. We cannot – and must not - make the mistake of believing that multiculturalists and supporters of diversity support our efforts.

They don’t.

References

Banks, J. A., and Banks, C. A. M. (2004). Multicultural education: Issues and perspectives (5th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Rathus, S. A. (2006). Childhood: Voyages in development (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Trawick-Smith, J. (2006). Early childhood education: A multicultural perspectives (4th ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall.

Raising Successful Multiracial Children

francis November 24th, 2006

The young lady peers out of the doorway. She checks the street before crossing over to the sidewalk on the other side. As she crosses the road she glances at the two men setting up the fruit stand on the corner, then hurries down the street, carefully dodging bikes, scooters, motorbikes, and an occasional pedestrian as she goes. People are already cleaning up from the night before, picking up the trash and wiping the tables of the outdoor cafes. Bikes, scooters, and motorcycles are parked en-mass on the side of the narrow, winding Paris streets.

Eirlys continues on her way. She enters into a wide boulevard, with high, stately buildings rising elegantly on either side. After crossing the boulevard, she enters one of the buildings, ascends the stairs, and greets her colleagues at work.

Some time before Eirlys left her apartment in the center of Paris, a young man with curly hair exited the same door. Although the thin, winter sun had not yet found its way between the tall buildings and narrow streets, Kealan wears dark glasses. He too checks the street, crosses it, and then hurries to the Metro station, scampering down the steps to the subway. He whisks his Metro pass through the turnstile, and negotiates his way masterfully through the maze of tunnels and intersections to the correct platform. After a short wait, he pushes his way onto the train, pulls out a book, and settles into the long ride to his job in the outskirts of Paris.

ParisEirlys and Kealan could be any young inhabitants of Paris. While they’re not pale and white like the native citizens, their dark hair and brown skin enable them to fit in with the large number of immigrants from various North African countries who make Paris their home. But they are not from Africa.

Eirlys and Kealan are young people from the United States who are living and working in Paris. They are in fact two of my four children. Eirlys has lived in France for more than 3 years; Kealan for just over one year. Both moved to France after completing degrees at Colorado State University. They are living in France to spread their wings, experience living in a European country, and gain international job-related skills.

My eldest, Maia, also graduated from Colorado State University, and is now working at the corporate headquarters of a national sporting goods company. She is married and lives here in Denver. And my youngest, RaEsa, is completing her degree at Ithaca College in New York.

By most people’s standards, my four children are successful.

When my children were young, many so-called experts kept telling me that multiracial children couldn’t succeed. We were especially warned that multiracial children who are not raised as black (because the rest of society sees them as black) would grow up to be confused, insecure and hate themselves. I also had to continually defend myself from ignorant people who rhetorically would ask, “but what about the children?” Even today the popular (and, unfortunately, academic) view is that multiracial children cannot be successful, particularly those who fully embrace their multiracial identity.

Raising Successful Multiracial Children

How does one raise successful multiracial children? Before I discuss how we achieved this feat, I need to make several clarifications.

  • Obviously there are a variety of ways to raise successful multiracial children. In no way am I saying that my way is the only way.

  • Much of the following advice – but not all of it – applies to raising healthy children of any race.
  • None of what I present is research-based. If you ask anyone if they raised their children according to the latest research, they will laugh at you and say, ‘are you stupid?’ We raise our children according to the way we were raised, what the parenting books say (even though they are often wrong), and what we believe. We don’t raise children according to research. In fact, its very interesting that no one says that black parents must raise their children according to the latest research, or that Native Americans must check the research before they engage in a certain discipline approach. Ironically most ‘experts’ tell schools and early childhood programs to make sure the approaches and techniques they use with minority children are consistent with the practices used at home – implying that the home culture knows the best ways to raise their children. Yet everyone tells interracial families to follow the latest research. What’s the difference? Its clear - raising children in single-race homes and communities is a ‘natural’ process; raising multiracial children is somehow unnatural, so interracial parents must consult the research of ivory-towered intellectuals, many of whom have a strong political grudge against interracial families.

Stay Married
There is considerable literature today about the negative effects of divorce, especially for elementary-age children. Further, single parenthood for anyone is a financial and emotional challenge. But for multiracial children, the biggest dilemma produced by divorce or separation is that they are often deprived of direct, concrete exposure to one side of their racial heritage – often the minority side. Since young children (up to about 8 years of age) are concrete learners, this reality jeopardizes their ability to create a healthy racial identity. There are many multiracial children being raised today by single, white mothers. Unfortunately after a divorce these women often return to their white family (for needed support) and all-white neighborhoods and schools. I have been involved in several legal cases where African American fathers believed their children would not receive positive exposure to their African American race and culture after the divorce. These fathers were legitimately concerned that their children needed to have concrete, regular exposure to African America adults, peers and communities.

When divorce occurs, often the entire extended family is divorced, not just one parent. Since extended family expose is so important, this is also a dilemma. When mixed-race parents divorce, every attempt should be made for to make sure the children continue to have exposure to the family they are no longer living with, including the extended family.

Expose Your Children to Both Extended Families
Maia, my eldest, was held by her paternal great-grandmother in Manchester, England, and also by her material great-grandfather in Kansas City, Missouri. For one year our whole family lived in a religious community in Pennsylvania with my parents. In Kansas City we lived close to my wife’s family; now her brother and his family live close to us in Denver. Again, since young children are concrete learners they need concrete exposure to both sides of the family.
Among other things this physical contact demystifies what it means to be black, and what it means to be white. A multiracial child coming to grips with the black side of his or her heritage does not have to embrace the media’s idea of what it means to be black (a negative stereotype of music, clothes and speech); rather they experience real. concrete examples of what it means to be black.

Carefully Choose Where You Live
We are all products of our environment, so it is critical that multiracial children live in communities that are supportive of interracial families. We have found that Western cities are much better places to live than Eastern, Midwestern, and South Eastern cities. Each family must make their own decision, based on experience and personal research. While an interracial family living in any neighborhood automatically integrates the neighborhood, it is important to live in a community that is accepting. Do not make the mistake and assume that a minority neighborhood is automatically accepting; it depends on the minority - some minorities are as opposed to interracial marriage as are some whites.

Carefully Choose Schools
Next to where you live, where your child goes to school is critical! Luckily in Colorado children can go to any school, not just their neighborhood school. Our children have been in private schools, religious schools, and public schools. For the first few years we even home-schooled our two oldest. On one occasion we actually removed our children from the school because one of our daughters simply said she would not return. It’s good to listen to your children! For high school our children attended an integrated city school, even though we live in the most upscale school district in the state. Because exposure to a diverse student body was important, we transferred our children to the city schools.

Schools are still not allowing multiracial children to select an accurate racial category on their federal forms (see my article, the Fat Lady Still has Not Sung). Some schools simple let the multiracial child fill in their choice, or allow them to refuse to fill in the forms; others are extremely uptight about these forms, even denying children access to the school until they choice “one of the above”, which of course is illegal.

Resolve Child Rearing Conflicts Together
One of the principle differences between many cultural groups is the way they raise their children, partiality when it comes to discipline. Parents must always be on the same page regarding their approach to discipline, allowances, homework expectations, cleaning their rooms, etc. Children are very good at creating conflicts between their parents over discipline issues. Parents must make sure this does not happen. Our approach was always to say, in response to a request from one of our children. “Let me check with your mother (or father) first”. Many African Americans were raised under very strict, punitive approaches to discipline, which of course they then use on their own children, while many middle class whites were raised with a much more permissive (al la Dr. Spock) approach. My wife and I struggled with this problem, but in general were able to provide a united front to our children, and reinforce discipline consistently.

Strongly Affirm a Multiracial Identity, Starting in Preschool
Much has been written about this country’s fixation on a single-race identity. Recently I saw this heading on the cover of Essence Magazine, “Mariah Carey: The Most Misunderstood Black Woman in America”! Schools still do not allow children to select an accurate category on their federal forms. So parents must work overtime on this issue:

  • Deeply understand that your children are multiracial, not one race or the other, and do not be swayed by those so-called experts who claim you must raise your child as black (or other minority parent) to be able to withstand white racism.
  • Give your child a label to use in describing his/herself, especially in response to all the insensitive questions. We found that “brown” worked when our children were young, and “biracial” when they got older.
  • Expose your children to multiracial heroes and current, positive multiracial role models.
  • Celebrate both sides of the family, and do not allow any conflicts to arise based on race.
  • Show that since Colonial times in America we have had multiracial people in our history.
  • Discuss the current knowledge that race is not a biological construct.
  • Study how people throughout history have traveled across geographical and cultural borders, married, and had children.
  • Deconstruct items in the news and local media that try to view everything through a single-race prism.
  • Challenge the school’s need to collect singe-race data.
  • Challenge any single-race thinking on the part of peers – “only blacks play basketball, only whites play tennis, only blacks listen to this kind of music, only whites listen to this kind of music, only whites can do well in school”, etc.

Talk About Race
Multiracial children challenge the very core of racism in this society and the world. Thus our children will not escape racist glances, words, attiditudes, and the every-present question, “well, what are you?” To help multiracial children understand racism, it is important to talk about race, racism, and the history of racism in this country and the world.

Parents of interracial children need to be honest and understand that racism can come from anywhere. Multiracial children also need to understand that anyone can be racist, and that they will be harassed and misunderstood by whites and minorities alike, by children and by adults (many times professionals – teachers, psychologists, social workers and school counselors). Single-race students, particularly in middle and high school, can be vicious! Because this racism in our schools is most clearly evident when professionals believe that our children cannot succeed, parents must be very wary of allowing their children to be placed in special education, or havening their children be seen by a school counselor or psychologist. My advice is that if you do not know the school psychologist or counselor personally, refuse to have you child seen by them, and choose you own private therapist.

Travel
As a family we have traveled throughout this country and Canada. We have also been to Great Britain several times, and my children have visited France as part of their school’s program. Two of my children have been to Brazil. When we travel we visit art galleries, museums, and historic places that celebrate humanity and people: the Museum of Man in Winnipeg; the Folk Art Museum in Santa Fe; various replicas of Indian villages in Canada; castles, outdoor museums, and historic villages in England, and Indian pueblos in America. We’ve dug for amethyst, picked peaches, climbed mountains, explored cliff dwellings, ridden on pigs, rowed on rivers, climbed mountains, and stayed in youth hostels, including one in a castle in the middle of England.

Anything that glorifies and celebrates the history and struggle of people is good; anything that teaches children that the world is a big place with rich, beautiful diversity works wonders.

Many people have said that they cannot afford to travel with their family. Sure it’s expensive, but it’s also a question of priorities. For 10 years I was the director of a Head Start Program (a program for low income preschoolers). The joke at the program was that even as the director, my car was always the oldest, most beaten up car in the parking lot. And I used to travel a lot for my job. I would always try to take one of my four children with me. I think each of my children have been to Washington, DC, at least 3 times! I have shared the San Antonio waterfront, Disney World in California, Wolf Trap in Virginia, Epcot Center in Florida, the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, and Central Park in New York with at least one of my children.

Focus on Humanity, Not Race
As our children were growing up we took them to many outdoor museums, children’s museums, art exhibits, parks, concerts and mountain trails. But we tended to avoid museums and activities that focused on race and ethnicity. For example, we would go to an international folkdance show rather than an African dance demonstration, a world’s fair rather than a festival from just one culture. We did attend some of the latter, but our focus was always on the universality of humanity, and not on the need to divide everyone into racial, cultural and national boxes.

Our three girls became very active in a local gymnastics club, and our son played soccer, starting at age 6 and going through high school and into college. They also ran track, sang in a choir, and joined other community events, but always with an eye on the event, not on learning their African American or their English heritage.

Acknowledge Their Heritage, But Don’t Dwell on It
Raising healthy and successful multiracial children in this society is a tricky business. It takes a balance of raising them as normal children with all to the challenges and stages that all children go thorough, along with a sensitive understanding of the negative and pervasive influences of a very racist and single-race conscious society. Don’t focus on your child’s multiracial heritage; but don’t deny it either. Don’t bring up issues like the federal forms they must fill out when they enroll in a school, but if the school does not allow them to select their true identity, deal aggressively with the school.

In one of my son’s schools the principal gave me his private phone and said, “call me any time you need to” (and I did); on occasions we have removed our children from schools that were unable or unwilling to meet their unique needs.

Parents who challenge the deep seated racism and single-race thinking of this country need to be willing to sacrifice everything for their children, including moving and taking their chldren out of schools that do not meet their need.

Myths and Realities

francis November 16th, 2006

Myth: Biracial Children are Messed Up
The prevailing myth is that biracial children-in birth, foster, adoptive and blended homes-suffer greatly. The myth claims that, biologically, mixing races produces physically and mentally weak children. A society based on single race categories and attitudes will confuse biracial children. A biracial child is torn between loyalties to each racial group. Further, the overt racism in this country will create tremendous psychological harm on biracial children. To combat this racism, children need to identify with their minority racial heritage only.

Finally, biracial children’s unique status will produce children overly concerned with trying to fit in and trying to meet peer expectations. The adopted biracial child, according to this myth, faces the added burden of adoption, particularly destructive if it is transracial adoption in a white home. These myths have been - and continue to be - perpetuated both in the popular media and in much of the professional literature. Academically they come from the “marginal man” view of people who have a mixed heritage.

Reality: Biracial Children Are, as a Group, as Successful as Other Children.
From a purely biological point of view, hybrids (genetic combinations of two or more distinctive groups of animals, birds, plants, people, etc.) are stronger than single species or a single race. They are more resistant to diseases and genetic defects, and have the strengths of both genetic lines. Even pure bred animals must have some genes from other sources to prevent disease and problems from too much inbreeding. No definition of pure breeds (dogs, cattle, horses, etc.) is 100%. Many pure-bred animals have a disproportionate amount of genetically inherited problems: Dalmatians tend to be born deaf; German Shepherds are prone to hip problems. Many new plants and animals have been deliberately produced by crossing two or more genetic families. The American Quarter horse, the Palomino horse, and Brangus cows are all examples.

Intellectually biracial children exhibit maximum genetic variability. This means, because they combine genes from two fairly isolated gene groups, they can show a very wide range of mental ability, along with a physical range that includes blond hair and blue and green eyes.

Clearly biracial children will show the range of problems all American children have. And -despite the sincerest of efforts by their parents and extended families - may succumb to the pressure of a racist, unresponsive society. What aggravates this problem is a lack of knowledge about the needs of interracial families and biracial children by teachers and other helping professionals.

Myth: Given a Choice, Biracial Children Choose a Minority Identity.
Because society labels biracial children with the group label of their minority parent, and because society does not recognize biracial children, the assumption is that children from interracial marriages who are now adults all identify with the minority community, and view themselves as minorities. Further, it is believed all biracial children when given a choice, will choose a minority identity. This gives them a sense of group belonging and enables them to support the political struggle of minorities. It also teaches them the skills needed to withstand racism from white socieity.

Reality
While many multiracial adults do identify solely with the minority community - especially those over 30 years of age - there is a movement in colleges around the country inwhich multiracial students are exploring their total heritage. These individuals are creating multiracial student associations, teaching classes on multiracial identity, challenging single-race university politics, and conducting research on issues surrounding biracial identity. These college students are providing much of the dynamic leadership of the current national multiracial movement.

There are also older multiracial individuals, including Romona Douglass, President of AMEA (Association of Multi-Ethnic Americans), and Charles Bryd of Interracial Voice, who proudly embrace their total heritage, and who provide opportunities for others to explore their own identities (See links).

What is particularly surprising about these people is that most of them were raised with the identity of only their minority parent. Further, they are exploring individual and collective multiracial issues at a time when the trend - especially in colleges and universities -i s to declare loyalty and pride to a single minority heritage. The wish to explore their total heritage is strong enough to withstand the tremendous opposition they receive from some minority professors, student leaders, Civil Rights activists, multiculturalists, and major college newspaper writers and editors.

Taking a Strong Position on Parenting

francis November 14th, 2006

The other day I read another negative article about biracial/multiracial identity (Detroit Free Press). The writer, who has no personal experience with this topic, still felt free to chastise people who are proudly multiracial, and those of us who advocate for a biracial/multiracial category. It made me realize why I write on this topic (it certainly is not for money!) I deeply believe someone must aggressively advocate the other (politically incorrect and thus media incorrect) point of view; it also reaffirmed my commitment to my positions, despite criticism. These positions that I continually speak out on include:

  • The right to choose to marry someone from a different racial/ethnic background, without criticism, derision, exclusion, or inspection;
  • The right of interracial families to define their own culture and climate;
  • The need to educate the media - including sometimes ‘our own’ - to the normalcy and logic of a biracial identity and a mixed heritage;
  • The reality that today the most vocal, insistent, and unkind attacks on our community come from minority leaders and writers;
  • The limited value of an academic involvement in our struggle, especially while academia is ruled by politically correct agendas;
  • The right of biracial children and multiracial people to an accurate category;
  • The importance of keeping our movement at the grassroots level, and not limiting our voice to a select group of leaders, publications and groups (despite the ‘lazy’ media’s need to always go to a few spokespeople);
  • The right of all children to a family, including minority children adopted into white homes;
  • The critical need to do what is right for interracial families, biracial children, and multiracial people, and not for groups, friends or political allies;

  • The constant and vigilant opposition to anyone and any group that supports segregation, opposes transracial adoption, and questions the loyalty and integrity of people who marry interracially and raise their children as biracial/multiracial.

Speaking of criticism, I was recently interviewed by a writer for The London Times, who commented that ‘one of our minority leaders’ claimed that “white parents who insist on raising their children as biracial are ashamed of their child’s black heritage”. I am so tired of this argument, and the overwhelming belief today in the black community that anyone who tries to be successful in the dominant society is disloyal and trying to be white! What a destructive mind-set.

Personal Identity

I’ve discussed the work of W.E. Cross before. Recently I came across more of his work and that of fellow researcher M.B. Spencer. The research of these two academics has important things to say: 1) minority children develop a sense of self-worth and self-esteem based on the way important people in their lives respond to them individually; 2) minority children’s self esteem is not increased through being taught pride in their racial/ethnic group; 3) minority children are more successful when they are encouraged to develop a bicultural identity - the ability to function effectively within their minority group and in the dominant society; 4) developing pride in the minority group teaches minority children to dislike and disapprove of people from other groups.

This research demonstrates why minority children who are raised in white families have as strong a self-esteem as minority children raised in minority families; it also explains why militant minority groups are opposed to transracial adoption (because these children don’t grow up disliking whites).

Finally, it supports those of us who believe in raising our children as multiracial (they develop a bicultural competence, and they develop interpersonal skills with people who are different). According to both Cross and Spencer, it is clear biracial children do not have to be raised as black to develop a strong self-esteem and a secure identity.

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