Madison Voigt:
For the majority of my childhood, I grew up in what you could call “the perfect neighborhood”. I lived on a street composed of of middle class White families, all of whom had 3 or more children that matched the ages of me and my 3 other siblings. All the kids on my street would always play together. In the winters, we went sledding at the park nearby and built igloos in our yards. In the summers, we camped out in our backyards and played at the creek all day trying to catch frogs. From the outside looking in, the dynamic of my street was extremely picturesque. What most people didn’t see, and an issue that was constantly ignored involved the racial tensions between the White families on my street and the Black families who lived on the street directly behind us.
I come away from reflecting on this experience uncomfortable because I feel conflicted about how I was socialized about race. I do not see this discomfort as a bad thing though, rather I see it as proof that I am challenging my Whiteness and growing my perspective on race.
For some context…
When my family moved onto my childhood street, the houses on the adjacent street had been recently turned into a “transition neighborhood” for low income families from Chicago trying to escape gang violence. I received a lot of subtle, and mostly implicit, messages from adults about how they felt about these changes to the area. Several families, including my own, built fences in our backyards for “safety and liability” reasons, but I knew it was to make sure the black kids wouldn’t try and jump on our trampolines or play on our swing sets. Once, I even heard my mom talking to our next door neighbor about “how lucky” those families from Chicago were to be able to get out of their terrible situation and come to a “better” place. From these messages, I came to understand that my street was White and was “good”, and that the street behind my house was black and “bad”.
After reading Hagerman’s book...
I began to reprocess this part of my childhood. I have thought about how I never engaged with the Black kids who lived in such close proximity to me. I think about times where I felt superior to my backyard neighbors. I think about times where I had questions regarding race, but never felt like I could ask them because I already knew we weren’t supposed to bring it up.
Before reading White Kids, I never thought that having salient ethnic-racial socialization conversations were necessary for my development because I was White. Although, looking back, I know I would have benefited a lot from having conversations about race. It’s clear that regardless of the absence of explicit conversation, I formed my own ideas about race. Not only did I pick up on racial attitudes from the adults around me, but I also lacked and understanding of what those attitudes meant and where they originated. As a result, I grew up colorblind, and from that colorblindness I have most definitely reinforced the systems that continue to marginalize people of color.
I come away from reflecting on this experience uncomfortable because I feel conflicted about how I was socialized about race. I do not see this discomfort as a bad thing though, rather I see it as proof that I am challenging my Whiteness and growing my perspective on race.
I want to acknowledge that while I adore my parents and wholeheartedly want to give them the benefit of the doubt, I know their strategies for racially socializing me and my siblings was not effective. The best advice I can give to White parents, from my point of view growing up colorblind, is to have authentic conversations with your White children about race that extend beyond US historical perspectives of racism. Although there are more complexities built within these conversations that have to be addressed (White savior complex, shallow multiculturalism, etc.), the first step that most White families need to take is learning to be comfortable addressing their own Whiteness and the racism that comes with it.