Hello hello hello welcome to another weekly live stream with your truly Dr Sarah L web um I took a break last week so hopefully you all got to use your hour for something else productive or restful but I’m back to finish out the second half of this ongoing fall series
On colorism in Media or colorism and media and this week we’re on episode 8 and we’re focusing on children’s media media yes this is one of the ones that you all voted for way back before I started the series I asked um I did a survey to see which subcategory of media
And colorism you all were interested in and many many people voted on children’s media and understandably so so before we dive into the content and things that I want to share as well as your comments and questions please introduce yourself in the chat say hello if you can and let
Me know where you’re tuning in from let me know what your zodiac sign is I’m always representing Gemini gang but I love all the signs and I said where you tuning in from yes okay and as you’re doing that saying hello in the chat especially this is your first time
Joining me I want to share some of my intentions and alignment for this live series as well as this particular episode so first I always like to have fun I’ve been saying more and more recently that I want to have fun doing my work because it is a lot of work so
Why not have it let it be fun we also want to make genuine Connections in real time so I show up as I am and I hope that you do the same you are come as you are be authentic to who you are in the conversation and then I also want to
Have creative conversations that dig deeper that go beneath the surface so I said in this throughout this series that we go beyond the idea that it’s just entertainment right like we’re like it’s entertainment but it’s also education it’s also conditioning it’s Al it can also be propaganda right so we
Don’t like to just skim the surface we like to dive deep and then lastly we want to facilitate healing and transformation for ourselves as well as the collective Society all right so if those values are aligned with your values and why you’re here your intentions your purpose your why for
Talking about colorism and having conversations around colorism then welcome you are in the room right place okay so let me go ahead and look at my chat a little bit hey Michael welcome um this says hi Dr Sarah I’ve Been Love and Hip hopping I gotta show this one on the
Screen Michael says he’s been love and hip hopping yes I gotta I gotta I gotta um shout out myself for being featured on the Love & Hip Hop MTV um YouTube channel and their other social platforms if you haven’t seen that conversation I will I should link it in
The show notes not the show notes in the caption under this video um but yes who else is joining us Danny hey Danny welcome back hello from Maryland and you are a Libra we are in Libra season to you so happy birthday to you happy birthday season um we have Jasmine rosewater yay
I finally caught alive you’re the best grateful for your work hey Jasmine I love your name rosewater I really like rosew water like the the actual um stuff the substance all right so if you are not able to use the chat but you’re still saying hello you’re still waving at the
TV or whatever I I’d like to greet you as well so we always start with one of my throwback photos and since we’re talking about children and media and colorism I got to do a throwback photo of myself as a child okay and when we talk about media and color specifically these other
Two people have been such a significant part of like my experiences with a media growing up these are my older siblings yes I am the youngest of three I have an older sister who’s the middle child and I have an older brother who’s the oldest and we have so many shared memories of
Watching TV together we have so many shared memories of listening to music together watching movies together and our family has so many inside jokes related to this right whether it’s Ninja Turtles Captain Planet chip Andale Rescue Rangers The Twilight Zone Marathon at the end of the year we just
Have a lot of shared memories as a family you know including my mom but definitely us as siblings waking up on Saturday mornings watching David The Gnome like I could go on and on and on right but also I like this picture because it depicts the the skin color
Differences between between me and my siblings as well and So speaking of childhood I always tell this story of how when I first started talking about color ISM over a decade ago having conversations with my mom and she revealed to me an experience that I had that she remembers I don’t actually
Remember it but based on her recounting this story to me we were visiting extended relatives and some of the extended relatives were complimenting my sister who you see featured there in the middle and saying how pretty she is and how my mom should watch closely for her
Because she’s going to break some hearts one day and then my younger 5-year-old self um my mom said she heard me Whispering well that’s cuz she’s light-skinned and what I always tell people is that for me to be able to recognize the pattern and articulate the
Pattern at 5 years old that means I had seen it often enough before then to know what it was right because people often say oh well they’re too young to understand oh I’ll talk to her when she gets older and I always tell that story to demonstrate to people how early early
It starts so the title of this is it starts early it starts way earlier than a lot of adults than a lot of parents and caregivers like to acknowledge so again for me to be able to say that at five that meant I had seen it often enough to really understand skin color
Dynamics to really understand how the adults around me were placing greater value on my sister’s skin tone compared to mine okay um yeah so shout out to my older sister jandelle and my older brother Anthony my best best friends for life um also the the survey so I I’ll always
Share the survey right so I’ll come back to the childhood stories but today’s survey or this week’s survey was about which form of children’s media does a better job of representing diverse skin tones and I have to say like definitely generationally speaking I think children growing up today in the 2020s have far
More options have way more diversity of skin color and race and ethnicity and all types of identity than we had than I had growing up in the 80s and and90s um but according to the 47 votes um the biggest one was by far story books right so children’s books
And I think I would agree with that I think if I took this survey and I can’t remember if I did or not I would also say story books in second place was toys and games so thinking about dolls and figurines and that sort of thing at 15%
And then TV shows and movies was in third place at 11% and then we had a few people who think that other types of media play a role and or have diversity of skin tones and then I’d like to shout out really quickly um Susie from the Rugrats anybody remember Susie from the
Rugrats so I’m featuring Susie here as an example yes of one of the TV shows we watched growing up but also because I remember y’all I can speak to the remembering the feeling of seeing Susie in an episode of regrets and the importance of representation the the impact that seeing someone who resembles
You as a young black girl it made a difference I remember feeling so proud I remember feeling seen even you know as an eight-year-old how old I was when rug Rug Rats came out and so it really is like as much as I enjoyed the Rugrats regardless there was something about when Susie
Came on on the scene when Susie knocked on the door when suie came to visit when she was and the way she was portrayed as you know being the older kid right she was older than the other kids and so they looked up to her they really
Respected her I just have like really fine memories of like being so proud right that the little girl in the cartoon that looked like me was seen as such a a respected character she was seen as the cool one you know what I mean and so again that’s just an example
For for me of how representation mattered to me growing up and why I believe it still continues to matter and speaking of children’s media um I did just Thursday this was Thursday um my mom and I went to see Lavar Burton speaking at uh the University of Texas
In Arlington and we definitely grew up watching the Reading Rainbow right I didn’t grow up watching Star Trek as much but we definitely grew up watching Reading Rainbow which is which was children Pro children’s programming in the 80s right hosted by Lavar Burton but even before Reading Rainbow right like
Backing up to his very first role his de Role in Roots anybody saw Roots raise your hand if you’ve seen Roots the miniseries by Alex Haley right so that was our first introduction to Lavar Burton um and I remember one of the things I’ll say about my childhood that
I am going to speak to when I give advice and tips on you know interacting with media when we have kids or when we are involved in kids in our life in some way is that my mom often had us watching inative TV shows about black history about American history about racism
About um the Civil Rights Movement right all sorts of movies and programming like Roots I remember my mom being very intentional about wanting us to see it I remember we were living in Kenner Louisiana about a 5minute drive from the New Orleans airport okay in this little duplex
2727 akan Avenue okay I remember it had the the brown 80s carpet and all the things we had like a a record player I would go home after school and listen to vinyl records of Bobby Brown right so I remember watching Roots right we had this like brown plaid couch y’all
Remember the 80s okay and I remember hearing about roots coming on and I remember that night my mom was like oh y’all have to watch this I want y’all to watch this story and I remember just sitting in that living room in that duplex and and watching Lavar Burton as
Counta and you know him saying that his name was counta even though they were trying to you know using violence to get him to assimilate his name right and so that just had such an indelible mark on my Consciousness even before age 10 right because we moved to we left ker
When I was seven so this was like pre- AG seven watching Roots and having this sense of deeper understanding deeper Pride deeper recognition of who I was who I am where I come from and so part of what I’m going to say when I get to my tips and suggestions and strategies
Portion is to start young and to not assume that your children are too young to have certain conversations that they’re they’re too young to be exposed to the truth of what this country of what this world has been and what it has done to various groups of people okay um
Before I continue I do want to play a clip from the Lavar Burton interview that speaks more directly to the approach that they took to to um in producing Reading Rainbow so let’s see if this plays hopefully the sound is good you know the 80s was a different time
And and we made a conscious decision to pce the show um slowly almost ply we didn’t use Quick cutting um we sort of leaned into idea that um that a connection with literature is like taking deep breath okay so I I loved that idea that a connection with
Literature is like taking a deep breath so when we think about the the survey right where people said books and story books have some of the best representation of diverse skin tones I also like the idea of books and I actually alluded to this when I talked
About other forms of media because books allow us to take our time right and so one of the people in the chat said that even when they’re watching TV they pause the TV show and talk about what’s going on in the TV show right but the idea of
TV and movies and music they’re not designed for you to stop in the moment and process what’s going on right but with story books you control the pacing which you you control like how you deliver the message you can control your commentary on the message and so reading
A story book to a child versus like sitting through a movie you can allow them to ask questions you can ask them questions you can say what do you think is going to happen next and they can they can pause and tell you to go back
To another page or they can say can you read that part again you know what I mean and so it’s just I think not only do story books themselves have more variety but also the way that you can engage in the content is more varied as well and it allows for more teaching
Right more um um intentionality in terms of how you engage with the story with a child okay all right so let’s get back to where I left off um so this is based on what I’m going to share next is based on a um a blog post that I wrote in the
Early days right so the time stamp here is July 2013 where I talked about when should parents discuss colorism with children and the reason why I wrote this blog post is because was hearing parents say things like oh well my children aren’t going to understand they’re too young to
Understand right are they I don’t want to put those ideas in their head when they’re so young right and so I’m emphasizing this because I think too many parents have a passive reactive approach to talking about things like racism they wait for their child to come home crying because they were called the
N-word to have that conversation when really we should be having that conversation with our children you know early on even even before in some instances even before they have language right we can still be doing this work and I’ll talk more about that but I’ll also share that Beyond this broadcast
That the website colorism healing.com has a lot more resources if you just Google things like parents our children our kids on the on the blog that you can do a deep dive of other content I’ve shared but for today I’ve pulled out a few quotes so please bear with me
Because I’m going to read these but I think they’re very insightful so the first one is from the University of Michigan and they the author the researchers were sharing that children are not colorblind right nor is their understanding of racial identity superficial children as young as age
Three okay so in my mother’s memory I was five this researcher was suggest that as young as age three children have a complex understanding of the way in which society constructs racial categories and that understanding goes well beyond surface appearances simply telling kids that race doesn’t matter
Isn’t going to be very effective since they obviously think it does in a couple of non-trivial respects and so I’ll pause here to say especially to to White parents okay because I feel like white parents take this approach a lot and they think oh well you know we just tell our children
That it doesn’t matter and we love all colors right and that’s talking first of all it’s like talking out of both Sid of your mouth right because how do your actions align with that or misalign but also because of all the messaging that your children receive
It’s not enough for you to just say oh well you know all people are nice we like all people right you have to actually unpack what they’re observing in the reality around them so going further this says to combat racism we need to understand its basis it’s not
Just a problem affecting a few bigots it’s a way of thinking about about the kinds of people there are in the world that goes far beyond surface appearances and gives rise to invidious comparisons and it’s a way of thinking that preschoolers have already begun to develop okay so I underscored the idea
Of comparisons hey I’m on my live yeah speaking of my siblings one of them just burst in the door on the live stream all right but back to this quote I underlined the idea of comparisons because it’s very easy and early on just like with me and my lighter skinn sister
Who just burst in the door um to for children to understand like okay this person these people look differently than me and people are treating them differently right and so kids are naturally making these comparisons themselves based on what they’re seeing in TV right like all all of my school
Teachers are white that is telling me something all of my um doctors and and dentists and nurses are white that is telling me something as a child okay all right let’s keep going thanks for bearing with me I know I’m getting I said I wasn’t going to be as research
Heavy this time around but I think you know y’all are going to hang in there with me okay so this one came from an article I can’t read the article title because the live stream controls are covering it but it was written by Aaron Winkler and she says children pick up on the
Ways in which whiteness is normalized and privileged in US Society you don’t this is what I tell people about racism colorism you don’t have to explicitly teach your child to be racist okay and I push back even with other black people when black people say oh they’re racist because their parents
Taught them to be racist I’m like well that’s true for some people some people’s parents do explicitly teach them to be racist but the vast majority of people especially white people who end up being racist and having racial biases it’s because their parents were not teaching them to be anti-racist right
And so you if you take the stance of I’m just not going to teach my child anything they are kind of on a track going Downstream towards becoming racist you can’t just take a passive approach and expect or hope that your child will be anti-racist or anti-sexist or
Anti-color right so you can not teach anything and your child will likely pick up on racist sexist bigoted belief and so if you want your children to not have that you have to be explicitly and intentionally teaching them how to counteract those things um what does this mean consciously or unconsciously
Middle class white culture is presented as a norm or a standard in the United States in terms of appearance Beauty language cultural practices food and so on I’m going to pause here because when we think about things I think about shows like um Bluey and shows like Peppa
Pig and shows like Garfield or shows like um other shows with nonhuman characters shows like Thomas the train or um what’s the one with the dogs not Wonder Pets yes but the PAW Patrol right where you’re like oh all the main characters are animals so race is not a
Factor in this show right because the characters are animals but even a turtle even a bear even a duck even a um a chip Andale rescue Ranger can still be racialized to represent white culture as being the norm right so in things of how people talk again even though it’s an
Animal it still takes on the dialect of Midwestern white people right even though it’s an animal it’s still eating and preparing food that we associate with like Midwestern white culture right and so how can even even when the characters supposedly don’t have a racial identity in the case of like
Animal characters how are they still normalizing whiteness how are they still normalizing white culture right and and making that um the norm making that seen as desirable or preferred okay and then I’ll finish this Tatum 1997 argues that this message is so prevalent in our society it is like
Smog in the air sometimes it is so thick it is visible other times it is less app parent but always day in and day out we are breathing it in for very young children this smog comes in the form of picture books children’s movies television and children’s songs which
All include subtle messages that whiteness is preferable okay I know I’ve been throwing a lot at y’all so I’m going to pause a little bit let that sink in I’mma check on the chat right quick before I continue let me bring this this off all right I I was doing a
Lot hello hello hello um Saturday morning cartoons yes Michael okay it was like oh my you couldn’t get us to wake up early for school but get me to wake up early on a Saturday to watch cartoons I’m there um K Michelle says Susie yes Susie was that
Girl okay she was it she was the it girl I loved it um Marva says having light skin has always felt like a burden not a gift okay well you can unpack that Marva Smith but that’s off topic right now so I’m not really addressing that type of
Question at the moment um Michael says yes seen roots and Roots the Next Generation and got the book okay yes that um I think that miniseries that book that work really kind of is Iconic in terms of thinking about and confronting and grappling with the history of this country um let’s see
Born Earth says yep counta K I understood the concept of people getting to name themselves from a very early age yeah this is born Earth were you here on the I think I remember that name from previous live streams as well but yeah the power of getting to name yourself
And also for me I think that scene right and the fact that they took the time to portray it in that way um help me to understand the ways that distancing us from our culture that’s severing us from our culture severing us from things like our naming
Practices and our language was part of an oppressive tool right and so when we think about assimilation and respectability politics and how a lot of black people across the diaspora find shame in their names or their naming practices or they find shame in their dialects and the way they use language
Right like it hearkens all the way back to that in where people were literally using physical violence vience in that case but now they use social violence now they use um psychological violence to still make us think that there’s something wrong with these aspects of our culture and identity um Michael says
Sibling fun yeah we we have a good time all right so let me get back to the presentation piece here so one other comment from the Winkler article is a lesson for caregivers okay so if you are in the care or a young child is in your
Care something to consider do not shush children or shut down the conversation a lot of times I’m going off script here a lot of times because the adult is uncomfortable with the conversation because the adult doesn’t feel like they have enough answers or have enough Insight or knowledge they just shut it
Down and they tell the child oh we’re just not going to talk about that right so don’t let your discomfort stop your child from having an opportunity to learn and be curious okay but she goes on to say instead engage in open honest frequent and age appropriate conversations about race racial
Differences and even racial inequity and racism research has shown that such conversations are associated with lower levels of bias in young children let go of the notion that you are quote unquote putting ideas in their heads by talking about race as we have seen research shows that young children notice race
And draw conclusions about difference on their own and bringing it back to colorism one of the things children are going to notice about race is differences in skin tone you can’t convince me that differences in skin tone differences in hair style hair texture are not going to be a part of
What children are noticing and being curious about and noticing how people respond to people with one skin tone versus another okay so what I’ll share here or just this is just additional articles I’ve written one of them was written in 2013 one of them was written in 2020 so again for
People who really want to go further with this conversation I have additional content where I talk about strategies and tips for talking to kids about colorism I have resources I have an introduction to colorism for kids and young adults right so all of that is already on colorism healing.com
Backlog but for today I will leave you with some 2023 tips right so first is to consider multiple forms of media so just like the survey where there were not just TV shows and cartoons but also story books and toys and Dolls right I think I I remember also my mom
Intentionally buying us black dolls like that was always a given the only white doll I had was The Little Mermaid right but all of our dolls Cabbage Patch dolls Barbie dolls other dolls all the dolls we had were black dolls even in the 80s even in the ’90s right so now it’s even
We have even more access right and then consider other things like posters postcards toys dolls graphic teas So when you buy your child a t-shirt that has a character on it how often is that character a black character how often is that character a dark skinned character
Room decor you think about all those blankets and uh what do you call call them comforters comforter sets with like all the Disney princesses on them I mean do what you want to do but if I had a black daughter I would not be buying her
A comforter with a big white woman on it I’m just not going to do it that’s not me I’m just not going to do it now you know what I mean your child loves Elsa you know what I mean do you but I’m not going to ever buy a black child a
Comforted with Elsa on it I’m just not going to do it okay or Cinderella or Snow White that’s just my my Approach My Philosophy and I am strongly encouraging you all to consider when you’re buying decorations and toys to decorate your child’s room and this let me say this
Too even if you don’t have a black child even if you don’t have a dark skinned child you’re still reinforcing whiteness you’re still reinforcing the notion of white superiority by surrounding them with all white characters and with ideas of whiteness okay so even if you have a
White child because of the world we live if you want your white child to be anti-racist if you want your white child to not be racist it might also behoove you to have to decorate their room with black superheroes right with black um characters as well and so I think all
People should be trying to surround themselves with imagery and representation of black people of dark skinned people regardless of your race regardless of your skin tone because again your textbooks the average TV show the average news program the average Senate race like Society is so inundated and saturated with whiteness and
Normalizing whiteness and seeing that as the standard that every single one of us regardless of what we look like or how we identify has to work harder to appreciate and value Blackness and value people with darker skin tones and Val value other types of marginalized identities okay I feel like I’m kind of
Going in but I’m going keep going the second tip that I have if you are if you in any way work with children or have your own children is to engage and interact so let children see and hear your responses and thoughtful commentary so if you are watching a movie if you
Are reading a a story book if you are shopping for um Halloween candy or Halloween costumes right actually comment on things right so you can use all of these moments as teachable opportunities if you see a costume in a store that might be offensive ethnically offensive or racially offensive like
Don’t just ignore it like explain to your child why we’re not going to wear these types of costumes right or why we’re choosing to buy this doll instead of the other doll or why are we’re going to buy this game versus another game right like actually have the conversation a third tip is
To have explicit conversations so that’s kind of one and the same there and then next I would say continue to do your inner work and watch for conflicting or contradictory messages now this is one adults don’t like to hear okay adults don’t like when I talk about this because it’s so easy
For adults to be like oh I just need to teach my kids I just need to talk to my kids meanwhile I can still have negative thoughts about my own skin tone or I can still have negative thoughts about my natural hair texture or I can still Harbor anti-black
Resentment um and expect that my children are going to learn something different like like let me tell y’all parents teachers caregivers you are teaching your child a lot more with how you act and show up in your own body in your own world in your own social networks even then you
Realize okay and then also consider the entire ecosystem of messaging a child receives a lot of parents say oh well I tell I always tell my daughter she’s beautiful I’m like that’s great but are you considering the entire ecosystem of messaging that your child receives are you also considering whether or not the
TV programs that she watches are also telling her she’s beautiful are her teachers also affirming and confirming her value and worth are you introducing her to Friendship circles and playdates where the other kids are nice and affirming and confirm her value and Worth right and so you have to consider
The entire ecosystem and not just oh well I told my daughter she was beautiful two years ago and she should know that right um resist book Banning you know it goes without saying I am currently in Texas and other other states and other countries other periods in history where
Books are being banned I definitely think we want to part of what we can do even if you don’t have your own children is to pay attention to policies and practices and laws and Trends in the news that are impacting our Collective children as a society okay that’s also
Something I’ll add is we have to even if because I don’t have kids but I believe that all children and the well-being of all children is part of my responsibility right as a citizen and then the last thing I’ll say is start early which is the the point of this
Episode is that it starts early it starts before children have the articulate language to describe what they’re experiencing at school it starts before they are able to digest a bell hooks book right and so although I will say Bell hooks has written children’s book books she wrote um skin again and
Some others um but yeah start early and in terms of starting early let’s say your child is one you’re not going to show them this YouTube live stream right but you can start to tell them that they are beautiful you can start to surround them with black dolls and and put um
Dark skinned people around them introduce them to your dark skinn friends and family even as a baby right because babies start to notice things like hair texture baby are starting to notice things like differences in skin tone and so if early on they have affirming interactions even if they’re
One years old or two years old or three years old if you’re allowing your child and encouraging your baby or your toddler to have affirming interactions with dark skin black people then you are doing that work even if you’re not like pontificating and sharing research with
Them okay I know I’ve said a whole lot a whole lot one last slide I will share this um there’s one author that I wanted to shout out author Derek Barnes so Derek Barnes and I are mutual followers on Instagram um and I think we met at
Like a Book Festival in Baton rou but just because like we actually interact sometimes on Instagram I wanted to highlight him as a person who makes children’s content children’s media books and story books novels and stuff for young adults specifically he focuses a lot on black boys but some of his
Content also includes black girls as well so just a shout out to Derek Barnes I don’t think he’s watching but just in case all right so let’s get back to the chat you all um and see what your questions or comments are and then I will share your reflection question your opportunity for
Growth and transformation and your affirmation um let’s see where did I leave off uh chaos um chaos says with cartoons like The Proud Family someone like me with with a similar name and skin tone as de Jan I was often compared negatively to her chaos you don’t even need whiteness
To be present to notice that dark skinn characters presentation can make others treat you differently um yeah so I’m going to put Chaos on the screen here um the proud family I would definitely say has very often been used as a prime example of colorism and how colorism shows up in
The media um in this case particularly children’s media and one of the things talked about the proud family in my dissertation and one of the things that comes up a lot is that a lot of times people say when they’re thinking about casting people in in liveaction films
And movies they’re like oh we just cast the best person for the role we just cast the best actor for the role we just pick the best actress for the role but when we look at something like the proud family or just cartoons in general you don’t have
The um the Obstacle of casting because it’s animated you’re drawing the pictures you can choose to make the characters look however you want them to look and so it’s particularly egregious it’s particularly troubling and problematic that in an animated series you see the same narrative these same colorist tropes right because even the
Father in The Proud Family the darker skinned person and the grandmother in The Proud Family the darker skinned person they were perceived as like comic relief they were the butt of the jokes they were um seen as more aggressive or more rough right and all of the lighter
Skinned black characters like the mom like Penny Proud herself were all always portrayed as more intelligent or always portrayed as more feminine or softer right and so definitely I think there’s the the need to ask and question just because this is a quote unquote black show just because this is a quote
Unquote black book or quote unquote black TV channel how is it still perpetuating harmful narratives how is it still perpetuating anti-black narratives how is it still perpetuating colorism colorism colorism colorism will definitely show up even in Black media yes why we’re doing this right so yeah I feel you on the proud family
Thing and this was the second half of your comment born Earth let’s see what born AR is saying born Earth says one year I got a doll kit and it had a blonde doll wig for Christmas for Xmas I wanted a white doll to go with the wig my parents were like
Maybe next year but that was really no my dolls were black right um yeah and so your parents were sending a message even without explicitly sending a message and so again as as if you are involved in a child’s life you think about what you explicitly say but also think about what
You implicitly say right without actually saying anything your parents were sending you a message about what they valued right um uh having our own is the only way this is coming from Ab uh separation to fully gain knowledge and power of self yeah I think AB I hear
This a lot and the only thing I struggle with is that until we really do our work it’s a it’s a it’s a conundrum right because I talk about for example how HBCU were blatant perpetrators of colorism they use the paper bag test a lot of black sororities and fraternities
Black churches there have been a lot of all black spaces there have been a lot of blackon spaces that still perpetuate anti-black discrimination that still perpetuate text ISM that still perpetuate colorism that still perpetuate perpetuate classism amongst black people right and so I think we
Have to do more than just make it all black we have to do more than just say oh okay this is a space only for black people we also have to look at yeah we’re technically all the same race but What ideologies are we bringing into that space What are the conditionings
And the social programs that we’re bringing into that space right because I have seen a lot of like black only or all black institu ions and spaces and events and things like that that are very very colorist and very very sexist and like just marginalize black people who don’t fit
As closely to the mainstream as um people think they should right and so I think it has to be more than just be black I think there has to be an acknowledgement of what’s that conscious what Consciousness are those black people bringing into that space right um yeah yeah I I see how
You’re you’re trying to to whittle it down but again even a dark skinned black person can still think that light skin is better you know what I mean so yes in in some ways that helps but it’s not like you can’t just assume that just because someone is dark skinned that they value
Dark skinn we can’t just assume that because someone is dark skinned that they are not going to discriminate against other dark skinned people CU I see it all the time right we talk about it a lot in terms of dating and how a lot of dark skinned black men will be
The first ones to say they want a light-skinned woman right or they want a non-black woman but I’ve also seen dark skinned women um purposely procreate with non-black men so that their children come out Mixed right with a certain hair texture and so again it’s not just about oh let’s just pick people
Because they’re dark skinn or because they’re black it’s like we also have to pick people because of the Consciousness that they are demonstrating yeah meet to re-educate yeah I think there’s a lot of opportunity I think there’s a lot of um spaces that require a smaller group
Of people right so people say oh we should have everyone at the table and I I’m agreeing with you in the sense that it doesn’t always have to be like the whole world convening I think it’s perfectly fine for a space to be all women or for a space to be all black
Women or for a space to be all dark skinned black women right and I think it’s perfectly fine for a space to be all men or all black men or all darkskinned black men and I think there’s nothing wrong with having those conversations just within the group of
People who are impacted by the topic that’s being discussed um yeah and thinking about too how that can even happen like informally so a lot of times we think oh it has to be like this formal organized convening but even if it’s just like at the barber shop or at
The beauty shop or like sitting around with your friends right we can still be doing that unlearning we can still be doing that re-education and it doesn’t always have to be this like institutionalized projects where it’s like oh on March 5th we’re going to all meet as darkskinned black people to
Unlearn things this is stuff that we can be doing in our everyday lives right like just you like me as a dark skinned person talking to another dark skinned best friend and like helping each other to do that un unlearning and re-educating right so yeah we don’t
Always have to wait for some official external hierarchical event or structure to do that work within we can be doing that work just amongst our peers and in our day-to-day as well great discussion everyone as always I love you all so much let me share your
Reflection question this is a one that I really like so people always say oh we should do more with kids and when are you going to do more for kids and what I tell people is that when I I influence people who influence children I am working for children right so the
Reflection question how can I influence adults who influence children for example I myself don’t have children but if I go to a school and do a training or a workshop for teachers to help teachers unlearn their biases to help teachers understand how to respect and treat darkskinned children fairly I am doing
Work for children right I am doing work for children even if I’m not always doing work with children right and so for you and the reason why I’m making this the reflection question is because I want to create space for people who are watching regardless of what your
Relationship is to children so this is not just for parents this is not just for caregivers this is not just for foster parents or grandparents this is for anybody whether you want kids whether you are work with kids professionally whether you have nieces and nephews like I do right at some
Point you will have influence over an adult who has influence over children right and so how can we start to talk to people our age so that they don’t perpetuate colorism against the children in their lives right and so let’s say I’m talking to an adult and I’m like oh
Well how is this impacting children well if that adult is a teacher or a parent or an uncle or an aunt then them starting to question unlearn is actually going to improve the outcomes for the children that they interact with okay and then opportunity for growth for all
Of us um is to release the shame or the embarrassment or the guilt about intentionally prioritizing dark skinned black representation for young children a lot of times I hear black parents resist um having these conversations and they resist they’re like oh I don’t I don’t want to seem
Like I’m being racist by only giving my child black dolls right you have to re release that because the rest of the world continues to invest everything it has to force feed us white and light right so again when you look at the entire ecosystem if you’re a black
Parent who’s like oh I want to teach my children to love all skin tones and so I’m going to buy them dolls of all colors right you’re setting your child up to internalize the anti-blackness of the rest of society okay because you’re having to work against so much inundation of whiteness
That buying your child only black dolls is not teaching them to be racist it’s your one of your only lines of defense for them to not internalize racism okay and then lastly your affirmation as we heal ourselves we create better conditions for the children in our care as we heal
Ourselves we create better conditions for the children in our care and so I’m saying this adults because I want you to still do your work yes we can prioritize children yes we can prioritize the Next Generation and I wholeheartedly believe that one of the ways to do that one of
The ways to improve the lives and the conditions of our children is to make sure we heal enough that we do enough inner work to where we’re not perpetuating abuse and harm okay so that’s what I have for you all thank you so much for engaging in these
Conversations thank you so much for participating and contributing even if it’s just as a viewer but definitely especially shout out to the people in the chat every week the people who take the time to pose a question or make a comment you all really help to broaden
These discussions and help us to dig deeper and I will see you next week next week we are looking at I never remember what we’re talking about the next week I think I don’t know what I’m talking about next week but I put out the agenda I put out the timeline and
The schedule on social media so you can follow it there um uh K Michelle says I have to think of it as rebalancing my ecosystem not being racist when choosing to intake mostly black stuff K Michelle AKA not that one I love this I absolutely love what you’re saying thank you for this
Language fam because you’re saying I have to rebalance my ecosystem by prioritizing black representation in a world in a larger ecosystem that devalues it and that marginalizes it and that tries to hide it right or negate it that’s a great way to describe it on that note
Folks enjoy the rest of your week and I will see you in the next video bye
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