May 10, 2021

[Ep. 208] Save The Children: Learn How to Raise Black Kids in white Spaces

Meet Val and Katie

Valerie Harrison and Kathryn D'Angelo came together in friendship and support to write the book 'Do Right By Me: Learning to Raise Black Children in White Spaces.' Kathryn, a white woman, married to a white man, upon adopting a beautiful bi-racial child, knew they needed support in learning what it takes to consciously raise a black child. The journey Valerie guided Kathryn along taught her not only how to raise an empowered black child in white spaces but also how to be a better parent and how to equip herself for the prejudices that Val knew would be there.

Too Great for Hope

Do Right by Me: Learning to Raise Black Children in White Spaces centers around the personal experiences of a married, white, heterosexual couple raising a biracial child. At the same time, it gives powerful anecdotes for parenting across the board while keeping transracial parenting and “the Black child’s needs” in focus. Whether their parents are Black, transracial adoptive, or transracial foster, parents must actively help and teach Black children how to understand and prepare for racism because in some way, it exists in all parts of their world. Chapter 3 – Too Great for Hope, Katie discusses how “Exclusion doesn’t need to be practiced in order to be felt. Exclusion is its own practice.” Black children feel this exclusion. Children with learning and behavioral differences feel this exclusion. This same feeling is magnified, for Black children with learning and behavioral differences. Research shows that exclusion can cause physical pain from ADHD, ADD, oppositional defiant disorder, anxiety, and low self-esteem. As Val stated, “White parents must WANT to teach about racism, inclusion, and exclusion,” because again, their Black child will face it at some point within their white spaces.

Creating a Positive Racial Identity

“Social images bleed into self-image/confidence,” – Val.

Black children face an ongoing problem that Black adults also face – being doused with negative images of self. Research shows, the more Black people ingest negative images, it lowers self-esteem. Black children are at a higher risk of copying negative behavior and believing negative imagery when they have no positive counter images. Do Right by Me: Learning to Raise Black Children in White Spaces gives a few anecdotes to help combat this issue for Black children which can help Black adults as well:

Limit exposure to such imagery.
Saturating Black children with positive and balanced images of themselves.
Learn and teach Black history to show the legacy of resistance and resilience. Black children need to know they have an equally rich and valuable identity as their white parents/guardians.
Advocate for Black children’s mental health and wellness first, before resulting to disciplinary actions.

Three Main Take-Aways

Do Right by Me: Learning to Raise Black Children in White Spaces is a parenting guide. Each chapter helps parents and guardians across racial lines raise their children across racial lines in a positive, empowering, communicative manner. Before the end of our episode, I asked for three main take-aways from the book and our conversation. Here’s what they left us with:

“Parents have to be intentional about identifying against their biases but also doing the work of recognizing what's going on around them. They have to understand how racism continues to operate in the lives of Black children. The colorblind ideology, the post-racial ideology does not serve Black children in this time well and so our goal is for parents to actually commit to doing the work, to learning and understanding. I know that most parents have a general awareness of war and racism. Our book tries to move them to the next level of understanding how it continues to operate in the lives of Black children. With that information, they are equipped to nurture positive racial identity and help their children navigate racism.” – Val
“Doing your own work. Doing your own work in some self-reflection to understand, “Where am I in all of this?” Chapter 2 Trapped in History is about the race history of the United States because, if you don't understand your history, you won't understand how it's playing out in our education system, in our healthcare system, in our criminal justice system. If you don't know your history, you are destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. As Dr. Eddie Glaude tells us, ‘We will keep coming back to these crisis points in this country if we don't look at our history.’ Take responsibility for it and make different choices! The driver for this book- it meant everything about defining the type of mother that I wanted to be so my son.” – Katie
“I think young people do more of what they see you do. So, we also advocate for adults to leverage their strengths and to actually engage in work for racial equity within their particular sphere of influence so that we are raising a generation of young people who understand that their individual achievement is most significant if it translates into progress for the entire group. Our suggestion is to encourage, to motivate adults to actually engage in the racial equity work where they can and where their strengths lie.” – Val

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I’ll leave you with one more Val quote, “Black children do best with they have positive racial identity. Their achievement and well-being depend on it!”

Shownotes

In this episode of The Parenting Cipher, authors of Do Right By Me: Learning to Raise Black Children in White Spaces, Valerie Harrison and Kathryn D’Angelo, share insights from their book on how to raise confident Black children with positive racial identity. They discuss strategies for interacting with white spaces including schools, health care, and sports. Kathryn also shares her personal experience as a white woman raising her adopted bi-racial son in this episode of The Parenting Cipher.

Genie Dawkins

Host of The Parenting Cipher, Genie Dawkins is a single mother of four and has over 25 years of being a parent advocate of special needs children. In addition to obtaining her Certification in Integrative Health Coaching, Lateefa holds an M.S. in Non-Profit Management and a B.S. in Social Sciences. Genie is the best-selling author of two books “Not My Child: Navigating Your Child’s Learning Difficulties with IEP’s and Education Resources” and a recent release “The Joyful Family Planner”. As an educational advocacy specialist, her mission is to help parents achieve a balanced life and overcome inevitable challenges both at school and home in a way that empowers parents and children.

About our Guest:

Valerie Harrison has her JD and a Doctorate in African American Studies. She is an attorney, educator, and served as acting president of Lincoln University. Valerie first book, Color Him Father: Stories of Love and Rediscovery of Black Men, was published in 2006. She is co-author of Do Right by By Me: Learning to Raise Black Children in White Spaces (2020).

Kathryn D’Angelo has an Doctorate in Education, and she and her husband are white adoptive parents to a bi-racial son. Rejecting colorblind or post racial ideology, they confront head on the reality that they would need to equip their son for an experience far more complex than anything they had experienced. She is co-author of Do Right by Me: Learning to Raise Black Children in White Spaces (2020).

Insight from this episode:

A deep dive into Genie’s favorite chapters from Valerie and Kathryn's new book.
Strategies on building positive racial identity in your child.
Details on the impact of social exclusion on a child and ways to move towards inclusion.
Reasons why we must be advocates for our Black children in education and health care.
How white parents of Black children can manage and use their privilege for the best interest of their children.