Many of us struggle to unpack what racism is with other adults. So how can we explain racism to kids in a way they can actually understand? Today, I’m sharing my favorite metaphor for how racism works. It helps children see that racism is more than individuals mistreating others based on skin color. Instead, racism is a systemic problem that requires social solutions.
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How old does a child need to be to understand metaphors?
Before I share this metaphor for racism developed by Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, let’s talk about child development. Very young children (age six and below) are concrete thinkers. If we use metaphors with them, they generally won’t be able to make the connection with the actual concept we’re trying to teach them.
The classic example of this from children’s ministry is comparing God to a rock to convey the idea that God is strong and steady. If you show young kids a rock and talk to them about that idea, they’ll later remember that you showed them a rock. But they won’t know what the rock has to do with God’s nature.
So, I don’t recommend this metaphor (or other metaphors) to explain racism to kids who are in preschool through first grade. It’s best for elementary age children and teens. With young children, stick to specific examples, like how most children’s books are written by white authors. Point out racism when you see it to help young children develop a basic understanding of its meaning. Read books together that explore what racism is.
Related Post: When I use the word racism, this is what I mean
How to introduce the metaphor
If you start to observe, you’ll likely find that there are natural ways you can start a conversation with children about what racism is. Perhaps there’s a racism-related news story that they’ve heard about. Children will sometimes accuse a classmate of being racist because of something they’ve said. (Sometimes this accusation is meant as a joke and sometimes it’s not.) At school, kids may have learned about a person or incident from history that involves racism.
Using one of these cues, I’d say something like “you know, lots of people think of racism as being something people only do on purpose. Like calling people ugly names related to skin color, making fun of someone’s accent or name, or treating them badly because you believe untrue things about their racial group.
Those things are a part of racism, but racism is a whole lot bigger than that. And people can participate in racism without even realizing that we’re doing it. That’s because racism isn’t just what each individual person does. Can I share a really smart way of explaining it that a college professor named Dr. Tatum came up with?”
Related Post: Antiracism at every age: what child development tells us
Alright already, so what is Dr. Tatum’s metaphor that I can use to explain racism to kids??
I’ve kept you in suspense long enough!
In chapter one of her book Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race, Beverly Daniel Tatum shares that the cycle of racism is like a moving walkway in an airport.
First, she shares that there are two ways of participating in racism: actively and passively. Active racism is in-your-face obvious acts of racial prejudice (like calling people ugly names that I mentioned above). People who are actively racist identify with the beliefs of White supremacy.
Passive racism is harder to see. Examples include staying silent about the absence of authors of color in school reading assignments, laughing along when a racist joke is made, or not challenging dress code policies that discriminate against popular Black hairstyles.
Here’s how Tatum compares these forms of racism to the moving walkway:
Active racist behavior is equivalent to walking fast on the conveyer belt…Passive racist behavior is equivalent to standing still on the walkway. No overt effort is being made, but the conveyer belt moves the bystanders along to the same destination as those who are actively walking. Some of the bystanders…may see the active racists ahead of them, and choose to turn around, unwilling to go to the same destination as the White supremacists. But unless they are walking actively in the opposite direction at a speed faster than the conveyer belt – unless they are actively antiracist – they will find themselves carried along with the others.
(my emphasis)
A quick note: if your children haven’t been to an airport recently and don’t know what the walkway looks like, just do an internet search for airport moving walkway. For some reason I don’t get, there are YouTube videos of them.
Related Post: 21 powerful children’s books about race and racism
When we use the moving walkway metaphor to explain racism to white children, we can point out that there’s strong pressure for white people be passively racist. All those of us who are white have to do to keep racism alive is do nothing.
More thoughts on using the metaphor to explain racism to kids from Jennifer Harvey
In her book Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America, Dr. Jennifer Harvey imagines even more ways to use the moving walkway metaphor. She points out that all white people have been put on the walkway because of how our society operates. We didn’t choose to step on to it. But we can choose what to do now that we’re on it.
Then, Dr. Harvey points out that the walkway can also be used to help kids understand systemic racism:
Structural racism is the thing that built the walkway, put us all on it, and set it running in a particular direction in the first place: the plans were drawn up, the money it took, the workers who were paid to build it and keep getting paid to maintain it. Structural racism is the larger systemic behind the walkway’s existence; the things that keep it going – which sometimes we don’t even see.
(emphasis mine)
I can imagine the moving walkway metaphor being used to both introduce and close out a class study of racism. In the beginning, the walkway can be used to explain how racism works.
At the end of the study/unit, children could add their ideas about specific events that built the walkway and events that maintained the walkway to keep it working. For example, Jim Crow practices that kept Black people from voting helped build the walkway. Today, new laws are being passed that make it harder to vote, which maintains the walkway. Students could also give examples of walking quickly on the walkway (active racism), standing still (passive racism), or walking the opposite direction (antiracism.)
Your kids can learn more about systemic racism in family workshop!
This small group workshop for kids ages 7 – 11 to take with a parent or caregiver called “what can I do about racism?” We use art, movement, and storytelling to understand what racism is and why it’s a problem. Families also work on an antiracism project together, using a detailed guide I provide with several choices, or by coming up with their own project.
Here’s what one parent had to say about the workshop:
