Ending Discrimination Starts at Home

Integrated schools provide students the opportunity to have cross-racial friendships. Image from the hiphopdemocrat.com.

We live in a society that teaches children how to hate, how to discriminate, and it's often taught at home in subtle ways- by our comments, by what we did not say to outright act against discrimination, and our children pick up on these subtle cues. In his research, Michael Rizzo found that explicit anti-Black biases emerge early and continue to develop throughout childhood. Rizzo states that “By 4 to 5 years of age, children—and White children in particular—hold more negative attitudes toward Black than White peers. This speaks to the state of parenting and our society.

Change starts with the power of one. You be that one!

Reference:

Michael T. Rizzo, Tobias C. Britton, and Marjorie Thodes, “Developmental Origins of Anti-Black Bias in White Children in the United States: Exposure to and Beliefs about Racial Inequalit

y,” Psychological and Cognitive Sciences 119, no. 47 (2022): e2209129119, https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2209129119