Brown man with a beard

I met this cool mom at a mom group once. She was friendly, outgoing and our babies were the same age. All was going well until she shared a story about the security guard in her building, Mohamed. She was so shocked that her baby loved this “brown guy with a beard" and couldn’t believe how she giggled, smiled and got excited every time she saw him "of ALL people!” As she shared this story, everyone in this group laughed, equally surprised that, this baby liked this brown man with a beard the most!

Why? Because in our society, brown men are pegged as criminals and terrorists. Scary people to avoid.

But this 9-month-old baby with a pure heart wasn’t tainted by her mama’s negative racist stereotypes. Not yet anyway. 3 years later, I wonder if she too fears brown men.

I’m sharing this because not one of the moms in that group (including me) said “Hey that’s racist.” It’s so subtle right? She was probably just joking. She couldn’t have meant anything bad…right?

But she did.

And we wonder how a 20-year-old white male could hate a group of people enough to literally drive them over and kill them…Because there are millions of “not racist” people in this world who think THEY’RE not part of the problem.

Because white supremacy is so engrained that someone making a blatantly racist remark in a group gets away with it. And with laughter & encouragement!

I don’t convince anyone racism exists. If they don’t think it does – they are part of the problem.

The hate starts in our families. These same babies who are so cute and innocent now, are watching, and listening to the not-so-cute and not-so-innocent words coming out of our mouths. If we want to teach our kids to be good people, to be allies, WE first need to be allies. WE first need to own up to our engrained prejudices that we ALL have, and then work to UNLEARN them.

Being shocked, surprised and sad does not save lives. TALK about these incidents with your family. LEARN from them. My just-turned-3-year-old daughter was sad when she heard the news of the Muslim family killed yesterday. She asked, “Why did that white man kill that family?”

With a heavy heart, we discuss white supremacy, hatred and racism.

Again.