As a white person raised in the mid-west I didn’t grow up having very deep conversations about race. But I moved to Atlanta almost ten years ago, taught at a majority black school, and learned I didn’t know a thing about race. I learned. I did the work. I read the books. I know unpacking my privilege is a lifelong journey but I am on that journey and actively trying to move forward.

But y’all, I am having some road blocks.  Sometimes things come up that I have no idea  how to deal with.

We are living in a neighborhood we love and sending our kid to a school we love. Our girl is one of the only white kids in the school  and I am encountering problems I am not really sure how to navigate. It is just my kid, at five and now six years old has questions about race I do not have answers for.

Question 1: Why can’t my hair go clack-clack-clak?

It started with the requests for braids. I put one small braid on the edge of her head. That wasn’t enough. I put two. I put the limit at three. She was asking for a whole head. LOTS of braids mom! With BEADS! When Trinity shakes her head it goes click, click, click, can my head do that?

No. I don’t think so. I mean….I don’t know. I struggle with the line between appreciation and appropriation and I actually am not sure if a tiny white child with reddish cornrows is okay or not. So…I just told her she can’t have them because her mom doesn’t know how to do it. This is technically true. Also, being tender-headed is real and my kid has that, she would cry and I do not want my kid to affirm the stereotype of white kids being soft in the middle of the beauty salon. So the answer is no…but would it be okay? I don’t know!

Question 2: Can I wear the police hat to school?

So another thing I am not sure about…What happens when the only white child in the class chooses the police hat for the pay a dollar wear a hat day. Not the soft police hat with the little bill, no. The riot gear one. The hard plastic round one with the all capital letters POLICE on the side. Is that okay? When there are protests against Police Brutality, and it seems like most of the issues are white police officers and black victims is it okay for your white kid to wear the police gear to school? Is it bad parenting to hide the police hat and make your husband convince your daughter that the yellow construction hat is really just as cool while you are driving to work and don’t have to deal with any of it? Is it okay to pretend I am asking for a friend?

Question 3: What is whiteness?

Okay. This one I am not asking for a friend. Last year my daughter told me we were white, and when I did the whole progressive parenting exploration thing and asked her “What do you think that means?” She roller her eyes at me and pointed at the skin on her arm. “It is this mommy, you got this too.” Yeah. That is all I really know. What the heck is whiteness anyway? From what I have read the Irish weren’t always considered white, nor Italians, Jewish people are only considered white sometimes. When do things change? What does that mean? Are you considered white when society as a whole decides to accept you into the majority so they can better discriminate against other groups? That seems pretty jacked up. How the heck am I supposed to explain that to my six year old?

Question 4: Why can’t we celebrate our whiteness?

So. Last year my kid learned with her class to recite  a poem that was the cutest thing ever. They did it at the Pre-K banquet. But also, it freaked me out, especially when she performed this verbal feat by herself, in public places. There was this line, about being proud of her race and I cringed every time. It sounded like I was raising an adorable, tiny voiced,  white supremacist. And the kids books I could find were no help. Every children’s book specifically addressing whiteness and what it meant was written by the KKK, so that isn’t really the angle we are going for.

Question 5: Why wouldn’t I be allowed to have any friends back in history?

One of the things I L-O-V-E about my kid’s school is that they talk about history and current events pretty frankly. The confusing part of this is that 5 year olds tend to make things all about them. So, when my baby hears that black and white children didn’t go to school together, she doesn’t hear that the white people were trying to keep the best things for themselves. Instead, she looks around the room, sees all her friends are various shades of brown, and thinks that segregation would have deprived her of her friends. That is why it is bad. That is all. The more I learn about white supremacy, the more I realize that I center whiteness in almost every narrative. This is what white supremacy has taught me to do. But it is also totally developmentally appropriate for my daughter to center herself. All kids do! At what point do I start the “this isn’t about you” mantra?
Even with these questions unanswered the benefits of raising our kid in a majority minority environment far outweighs the sometimes awkward and confusing conversations we have at dinner. Ultimately, our world is only going to be more diverse and I am (I hope) giving my kids the best foundation to tackle their adult world. But I could use the answer to these questions if anyone has them.