Ethnically Blank: Questioning the Culture Checklist

“Showing Our Color”-Coded Psyche

Why Race Relations Should be Handled at an Early Age

“The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance” –Benjamin Franklin

When Erika and Doris Nagambi Ul Kuo, German natives with a mixed background, were growing up, they were the only Mulattoes in their neighborhood. “I still remember, once, my blond girlfriend and I […] compared our hands and were amazed that mine were so brown and hers so light” (56). Though no adults talked about it, it was clear through the environment- their teachers, the store clerks, men in general- that they were treated differently. No one mentioned it, so as children, they had to piece everything together and come to their own conclusions. With no actual term for native Germans with African descent, it seems obvious that those hard-to-answer questions were put on the back burner of the social agenda.  And it is no wonder why in the United States, with 27.6% of the population considered as “non-white” (increasing every year), and a historical legacy of slavery and racism, the issue of educating kids on differences at an early age seems practically out of the question (Census 2010). After all, little Ebony doesn’t have the mental capacity to understand why Santa was white at the mall but black in the story book of the “Twas the Night Before Christmas” by Melodye Rosales, right?

Wrong. Child development researchers have found new information that “children see racial differences as much as they see the difference between pink and blue—but we tell kids that "pink" means for girls and "blue" is for boys. "White" and "black" are mysteries we leave them to figure out on their own” (Newsweek). Yet for decades, we have educated our children through the mentality that if race is not discussed it won’t be an issue. The “color blind” principle, the notion that children are shielded from seeing race or questioning color at an early age, is scientifically unfounded, as research at the University of Texas concludes.

            Children left to their own mental capacities, will naturally develop in-group preferences. Rebecca Bigler’s experiment on pre-schoolers who were given randomly red or blue shirts to wear for three weeks, concluded that their color was better, smarter, and more favored to win in any activity than the color not their own. The children never segregated their behavior, but marked a distinct separation from the opposing color, even though the colors were never mentioned by the teacher and the kids were never grouped by color. This natural tendency to like the characteristics of one’s own and to categorize everything is normal; what isn’t is to assume children can’t see differences in color, while gender, and weight do go noticed.

            Is this another way we avoid the race issue in America? I think so. When “nonwhite parents are about three times more likely to discuss race than white parents” while public schools are looking more diverse, something is off (Newsweek). Children will tend to form their own opinions. If a child says “Mommy, why is that man so dark?” maybe time would be better spent at talking to one’s child openly about color and equality, than the quick, shrill, “Hush, Johnny!” that implies to the child, that the difference is there, it’s important, but it must be taboo.