Treating other people with dignity and respect is Humanity 101. If we go back in time and ask slave owners if they believe in treating other people with kindness, most of them would probably say yes. Racism today is not so much about the concrete things we say or do (though it is that also). It is more about the assumptions we make about people based on race. Most of the time, these assumptions are embedded into our subconscious not only by the abundant narratives about race that we see in the media and in the news, but also by the lack of narratives from the perspective of minorities. So yes, sure we need to treat others with basic human decency. But I believe that basic human decency also includes listening to and trying to understand other perspectives, And it includes desiring deeply an equitable (as opposed to merely equal) society.

So basically a safe, secure and stable nuclear family is a haven of safety, security and stability.

:mellow:

Colourblindness, as I understand it, is the idea racism can be reduced or ended if all people are treated equally without regard to race. In reality, the way this plays out is that white experiences are seen as default and black experiences are denied or minimized. The invisible benefits that white people enjoy are either denied entirely or are not examined and are shrugged off. The idea that every single one of us has biases through which we judge other people mostly without our knowledge is seen as insignificant and minor. For example, look at this article: http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-36-fall-2009/feature/colorblindness-new-racism Some excerpts: What this leads to is that our biases and prejudices leech into our society and get entrenched in systems and policies such as Voter ID laws, incarceration policies, schooling, healthcare policies etc. The first step in effecting any change, is to educate ourselves, which is what the OP is trying to do with her kids.

Often in these conversations there seems to be a not so insignificant overlap between people who think being colorblind is a good strategy for dealing with racism, and people who deny that black people face significantly greater challenges or face discrimination due to inherent bias. It leads me to conclude that people stick to the colorblind theory because the alternative would be to push governments to take steps to reduce systemic privilege and bias in their policies and this would mean giving up their pet political and economic theories (or "worldview" as some like to call it).

Two classics for explaining white privilege: White Privilege, Explained in One Simple Comic White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

I prefer to focus on why or how people got to be a certain way. Is is poverty, lack of education, lack of opportunities, indoctrination? I think it is part of the conversation regarding inequality and privilege and how some people grow in conditions that are not ideal.

There is another thread right now asking whether racism always requires intent. No it does not. So it is not always about people who judge others based on skin color. Racism can look much more innocuous and benign...there has been a lot of discussion on racism in the past few weeks on these boards and a lot of information and links have been shared on how racism actually looks like. If we have to discuss these topics with our kids, then we will first need to educate ourselves on how to recognize incidences of racism, sexism or homophobia.

My son is 14, so decidedly older. I don't know how I would approach these topics with a 5 year old. But I do talk to my ds a lot about 1.privilege and how insisting on "equal" treatment can often mean promoting inequality, and 2.implicit misogyny, homophobia and racism - pretty much whenever I come across prejudiced articles, advertising, news reporting, and social media, I discuss those with him.

The more I think about this, the more I find it absolutely horrifying! What is more, this policy must affect the poorest the most.

Yes it would be wonderful if skin colour would become as inconsequential as hair colour or eye colour in our society. And while there definitely are individuals who are colorblind in certain interactions, it is extremely rare for people to have absolutely no biases. All of us have implicit biases.

Wow, that ancor was something!

There was a really long thread not more than 3 weeks back, the Chris Rock one, where implicit bias was discussed at length with so many interesting and important links that I must admit I was surprised to see the title of this thread. Maybe the OP missed seeing that one? Linking that thread here: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/547340-chris-rock-has-been-pulled-over-3-times-in-the-past-7-weeks/

I read a great blog post recently - Am I Being Paranoid? Being a Woman of Color in Academia - which perhaps explains your encounter with this man. The author says: But how do we establish the motivation of perpetrator’s (racist?) act, especially not as it pertains to blatant acts of racism, but microaggressions. In acts of microaggression, while the damage of the singular act is harder to explain, it fits into and perpetuates a larger framework of systemic racism. Furthermore, it is not any single act, rather a lifelong accumulation of indignant experiences that begin to shape the marginalized experience. Even though you were just being polite, the man was perhaps filing this latest encounter with previous experiences where he had felt patronized or belittled. Your explanation must have helped clarify to him that what he was experiencing was not a microaggression. Here is a website where people are relating the microaggressions they have experienced...most of them innocuous individually, but accumulated they add to an experience of hostility.

Colour blindness (with respect to race) often seems to go hand in hand with refusal to acknowledge privilege and refusal to acknowldge implicit biases, which can in turn lead to a more racist society, not less.

My dog will start snorting, making weird noises and sometimes breathe erratically when he is deep asleep and dreaming. This is also sometimes accompanied by rapid movement of limbs. Best of luck with your dog...hope it turns out to be nothing!

Hmmm, let's see. On this thread alone there are people who have: Called other people abnormal. Said that LGBT are not born that way and that they just deliberately make a choice because of their wicked proclivities. Suggested to a mother that her child may have been sexually abused and may have hidden that from her. Suggested uncharitably that a person is going through a difficult transition because they are either greedy for more money or more fame. Suggested that LGBT tendencies develop due to steroid use without any evidence to back such a claim. Said that they feel they must keep declaring their disapproval of LGBT people loudly and frequently (... lest any LGBT person even for a moment stop feeling shameful and start growing comfortable in their own skin). Now, forgive me for snorting at your claim these people have deep compassion for the struggle of LGBT. If this is what deep compassion looks like, I dread to think what you would call hate.

You cannot accept people while being disapproving of them.

And you think it is a good thing to not accept people who deviate from the normal?

You are aware that there are intersexed people born with mixed genitalia right...I am not saying those are the only kind of genderqueer people out there..but I get the feeling that genitalia is probably the only kind of evidence you will accept. What is more, transgendered people were recognized as a "third gender" and had their own place in various cultures since ancient times. For example hijras of South Asia. Not sure what you are trying to be in denial of here.

And I am sure there are people who lost jobs because they did not believe in interracial marriage because once upon a time such a thing was unthinkable because that was the way the world worked. So what?

How can it be anything but heroic, when any public figure comes out to reveal something so deeply personal, giving courage and strength to people (especially young people) who are struggling with shame and depression and maybe even saving lives?

Have you checked inside your car? I lost something tiny once and tore down the house looking for it only to find it later under my car seat. It had fallen out of my purse.

This all sounds pretty much like some chicken and egg problem :) Were humans moral before they decided what constitutes morality? If not, then how did they decide what is moral? But not only did humans arrive at a system of morality, infact they arrived at multiple systems of morality in various cultures and at various times and yet these systems look remarkably similar. And they did this while relying on human instinct for compassion, empathy and reason (as well as fear and superstition). Human instincts are far from infallible and have generated some spectacularly good and some spectacularly bad ideas and I am certain there are philosophers out there debating and trying to sieve out the good from the bad. There should be no reason to assume that materialists and atheists cannot participate in the debates about which values produce better outcomes. So also, most certainly there must be theists out there who value competition, aggression and war and atheists who value love, cooperation, stability and peace. So again there should be no reason to assume that materialism will make one particularly attracted to only the bad ideas. We live in a marketplace of ideas and some ideas will turn out to be particularly good at maximising what we consider as human well-being. They will capture the public imagination and spread. The ideas of equality and freedom did not become popular until mid 18th century for example. Other ideas will be tested and discarded - some forms of socialism for example. Some ideas which we thought were good will be challenged - unbridled, unregulated free market capitalism for example. It is an ongoing cycle...but again there should be no reason why we cannot arrive at a set of universally applicable principles. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a step in that direction after all. It is a messy process no doubt with no end point in sight. There will always be new ethical challenges to debate. The tools we have to answer these questions have always been, and will continue to be are our own instincts tempered with science, reason, deliberation and debate.

Show me evidence of a "god". Which human being (or animal for that matter) when making any decision at all, has ever pondered whether that will result in better survival of one's genetic material? I mean, I cannot think of one decision made in my lifetime where I gave even one moment's consideration to my genetic material. The idea that materialism will somehow lead humans (or animals) to be overly obsessed with their genes is bizarre and it is a non-sequitur. Materialism is simply an idea that everything that exists is material in nature. But just because we are made of atoms, and just because our emotions and thoughts are borne out of electrical impulses, it does not automatically follow that we would simply behave like a cloud of charged particles. That would be a bizarre misinterpretation of both science and materialism. The idea that only an instinct for selfishness / competition/ war can result in success of a species is also a misinterpretation of science. What is more, humans have evolved enough that we are no longer driven purely by instinct. I would argue we depend more on our capacity to reason that on our primal animalistic drives. We are moral animals because we have evolved a moral sense. Whether it is adaptive, or maladaptive time will tell, but considering the success of our species, I should think evidence points in the direction of adaptive.