083: White privilege in parenting: What it is & what to do about it

This episode is part of a series on understanding the intersection of race, privilege, and parenting.  Click here to view all the items in this series.   This episode launches a series of conversations on the intersection of race and parenting.  I spent a month wading around in the psychological literature on this topic and deciding how best to approach it, and eventually decided to split it into four topics.   Today we’ll dig into White privilege in parenting through a conversation with Dr. Margaret Hagerman on her book White kids: Growing up with privilege in a racially divided America.   For those of us who are White, White privilege can be an incredibly uncomfortable to discuss.  After all, we didn’t ask for this privilege – we were just born into a system where we have it.  But the reality is that we do have it, and many of the actions we take on a daily basis mean that we don’t just benefit from it but we actively take steps to perpetuate that advantage.  So in this episode we’ll learn how we can recognize that privilege in our lives and we’ll start to learn about some steps we can take to address it.   In upcoming episodes we’ll look at White privilege in schools, parents’ responsibility to work on dismantling systems of racial privilege, how to talk with children about race, and what children learn about race in school (and what you can do to supplement this).   I’m really excited to begin this conversation, but at the same time I want to acknowledge that while these episodes are based on a close reading of the literature, this is a massive subject and I’m not the expert here – I’m learning along with you.  If you think I’ve missed the mark, do let me know either in the comments or via the Contact page.  And if you’d like to participate in a series of conversations on this topic with other interested parents, do join us in the free Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group – just search for #Whiteprivilege to find the thread.   You might also be interested to listen back to earlier related episodes: Wait, is my toddler racist? (Recorded back when I was still learning to distinguish between prejudice and racism!) How children form social groups, which is critical to understanding how they develop prejudices in the first place.   Jump to highlights 01:34 Introduction to this new series on race and parenting, and why this episode came about 03:04 Introduction to Dr. Margaret Hagerman, author of White Kids 06:43 Defining race as a social and political construct 08:47 Is it racist to discuss race? Dr. Hagerman's answer 11:43 Comparing the two communities: a diverse city area versus an almost entirely White suburb 19:08 Why White parents can opt out of talking about race while Black parents can't opt out of preparing their kids for it 29:14 Opportunity hoarding: even self-identified anti-racist parents securing exclusive extracurriculars for their kids 32:29 Structural inequality in schools: hall passes, discipline, and the school-to-prison pipeline 38:15 Racial disparities in medical treatment, including a study on pain medication for Black children with appendicitis 40:21 Housing inequality: redlining, restrictive covenants, and who got home loans after the New Deal 44:41 What parents can do: caring about other children, not just your own 50:05 Sponsoring a scholarship spot, modeling relationships, and the ideological side of raising anti-racist kids   References Addo, F.R., Houle, J.N., & Simon, D. (2016). Young, Black, and (still) in the red: Parental wealth, race, and student loan debt. Race and Social Problems 8(1), 64-76.Birkhead, T.R. (2017, April 3). The racialization of juvenile justice and the role of the defense attorney. Boston College Law Review 58(2), 379-461. Bonilla-Silva, E. (2018). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in America (5th Ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Brantlinger, E., Majd-Jabbari, M., & Guskin, S.L. (1996). Self-interest and liberal educational discourse: How ideology works for middle-class mothers. American Educational Research Journal 33(3), 571-597. DiAngelo, R. (2011). White fragility. International Journal of Critical Pedagogy 3(3), 54-70. Full article available at https://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/viewFile/249/116 Goyal, M.K., Kupperman, N., & Cleary, S.D. (2015). Racial disparities in pain management of children with appendicitis in emergency departments. JAMA Pediatrics 169(11), 996-1002. Marrast, L., Himmelstein, D.U., & Woolhandler, D. (2016). Racial and ethnic disparities in mental health care for children and young adults: A national study. International Journal of Health Studies 46(4), 810-824. National Conference of State Legislators (2017, August 1). Disproportionality and disparity in child welfare. Author. Retrieved from http://www.ncsl.org/research/human-services/disproportionality-and-disparity-in-child-welfare.aspx Nicholson-Crotty, S., Birchmeier, Z., & Valentine, D. (2009). Exploring the impact of school discipline on racial disproportion in the juvenile justice system. Social Science Quarterly 90(4), 1003-1018. Nodjimbadem, K. (2017, May 30). The racial segregation of American cities was anything but accidental: A housing policy expert explains how federal government policies created the suburbs and the inner city. Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-federal-government-intentionally-racially-segregated-american-cities-180963494/ Poehlmann, J., Dallaire, D., Loper, A.B., & Shear, L.D. (2010). Children’s contact with their incarcerated parents: Research findings and recommendations. American Psychologist 65(6), 575-598. Scheindlin, S.A. (2018, May 31). Trump’s hard-right judges will do lasting damage to America (Opinion). The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/30/trump-judge-appointments-roe-v-wade-courts Sibka, R.J., Horner, R.H., Chung, C-G., Rausch, M.K., May, S.L., & Tobin, T. (2011). Race is not neutral: A national investigation of African American and Latino disproportionality in school discipline. School Psychology Review 40(1), 85-107. Wanless, S.B., & Crawford, P.A. (2016). Reading your way to a culturally responsive classroom. National Association for the Education of Young Children. Retrieved from https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/may2016/culturally-responsive-classroom