Episode 3: Crayons, Coloring Books, and Colorblind Parenting

Kasie, Jessica, Melissa, and Alex get a little sloshy and talk racism. #NoKarens Here are the show notes:

Main Idea: Talking to kids about racism, and why it is important to do so

• The purpose and scope of the podcast
• What they can expect in each episode
• Who we are (Name, location, something about you related to the topic of the day)
  • I’m Kasie, I’m in Columbia, and I am frequently the only white woman in the room in my professional world.
  • I’m Jessica, and I live in the Upstate of SC. 
  • Alex lives in Charleston (lowcountry) and is mom to 1 yr-old Perry.
  • Melissa is a work from home mom of 3 also in the lowcountry
• Today’s topic: Talking to your kids about racism
  • Beginning anecdote: Kasie once sent her daughter to a church picnic with her best friend, Renee, who is Jamaican. Hollie was, in Renee’s words, “glowing” as the only white kid there. Hollie’s response? “The hot dogs were great!”
    • KW- Having close friends of another race has left me “color blind” in that I didn’t realize I needed to see the difference between their experience and my own. I was lucky. Hollie’s BFF in preschool was biracial and her way of describing people was that they looked “like Hailey’s dad” or “like Hailey’s mom.”
    • Jessica- I was the opposite. I actually became aware of the difference because of my best friend who is a black woman (and also a mother of sons)- story about her son’s experience with a racist police officer

• When did it change for you or when did you become aware of it, and how does your awareness impact your parenting?
  • • KW – moving to Columbia, looking for new friends, I joined a running group called Black Girls Run. I found the leader of the group on Map My Run, she’d mapped a route nearby and I reached out and asked if she ran with a group. She said yes and invited me to join. She told me they were a chapter of Black Girls Run, a national group, and asked if I was okay with that. I was. Some of the women there were not. They made it clear I was not welcome there. 
      • As an entrepreneur, in my business circles, there are a lot of Black and African American business owners. The minority business services through the County, City, and State often build programming that focuses on Black business owners, and women — how to get government contracts, that sort of thing. So it’s not unusual for me to be the only white woman, the only white person sometimes, in these sessions. Since I teach Hollie not to do business with the government, these conversations are pretty much about the resources being siphoned from my own paycheck through the University and to the business owners with whom I am competing for clients. Sort of.
      • Jessica: In our home we try not to describe people by the color of their skin. Our kids have never been taught to see the color of a person’s skin, but rather to see the person as a person. In light of recent events we have had to start having some very important conversations about race-related issues. Charles Wakefield is a regular topic of conversation. We also talk about how to respect boundaries and be respectful of those who are hurting, whether or not we understand (white privilege) 
      • Can we bust that “the north isn’t racist” myth? (maybe we incorporate this later if we run out of time) 
        • KW – in Northern Virginia, I thought we were all the same. We weren’t. How did my Black friends put up with my blindness?
        • Melissa is a transplant from the Northeast. Is this something more challenging for you and your family in South Carolina? – I have actually seen / heard more racist remarks in Ct than in SC. I had a bi-racial boyfriend in HS and someone from my school wrote racial slurs on my car.  I lived in a tiny town and there were maybe 10 non-white students in my high school.
        • Jessica — Greer, S.C.? or growing up there then vs. now? 
  • Why these are Libertarian ideas — if we haven’t covered that already, let’s put it into context for them. Staying with our Libertarian niche will earn more audience than straying from the advertised brand of parenting advice.
• Coming up on the next episode: 
• Follow us on all the socials
• Thanks and goodbye