The other day, my 10 yr old asked me this question.
My immediate response was “When people think their skin color is better than other people’s”.
Though, now I’m not sure that I answered that question to the best of my abililty.
To be fair to past-me; we were walking into the doors of her school in the morning, after having gone to the doctor, and we only had about 30 seconds before getting to her classroom. Not a lot of time to extensively answer any loaded kid questions, such as the one she softly lobbed at me only 5 seconds before.
What does ‘Racist’ mean?
How do I adequately answer this question? How much do I tell her about racism? Is it just about skin color? Or is there more? Do I explain the long social history that comes with that word? Do I have to tell her about all the injustices that have occurred, and continue to occur, because of it…and, of course I do…but when? How? Do I tell her all at once, or in parts? How much detail do I go into, and what if I miss something important?
I am not one to skirt around hard or uncomfortable topics with the children in my care…but man, this one is a doozy.
And it’ll take longer than 30 seconds to explain.