Good Life Project - How to Raise an Antiracist | Ibram X. Kendi

Episode Date: July 21, 2022

One of the things I’ve come to believe during the now 10-year journey of Good Life Project is that there truly is no individual good life, without there also being a more collective and inclusive path for a societal good life. We are all interconnected. And a key part of this more expansive aspiration is about planting seeds, starting with younger generations. So, how do you raise kids to create a more equitable and inclusive society? One where we’re not afraid to acknowledge and discuss beautiful experiences, while also addressing hard truths in a way that steeps us in reality, invites everyone into the conversation, and compels us to do the work needed to create more possibility, equality and opportunity for all, regardless of race, socio-economic status, religion, age, ability and beyond?That’s where we’re headed with today’s guest, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi. He’s the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, founding director of the BU Center for Antiracist Research, a contributing writer at The Atlantic, CBS News racial justice contributor, and the host of the Be Antiracist podcast. Dr. Kendi is also the author of many highly acclaimed books including Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, making him the youngest-ever winner of that award. He has also produced five straight #1 New York Times bestsellers, including How to Be an Antiracist, Antiracist Baby, and Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, co-authored by Jason Reynolds. In 2020, Time magazine named Dr. Kendi one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He was awarded a 2021 MacArthur Genius Grant. And his new book, How to Raise An Antiracist, take us into the core ideas around bringing kids up - as caretakers, parents, educators and community members - in a way that opens their minds, hearts and eyes to both our history and to the work still to be done to decrease inequality and increase equality.You can find Ibram at: Website | Instagram | Be Antiracist PodcastIf you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Austin Channing Brown inviting all to play a part in creating a more equal and inclusive society.Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED. Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One of the defining features of being anti-racist is having the capacity to really, truly self-reflect, to be self-critical, to recognize that being anti-racist isn't a destination, it's a journey. And particularly if you're starting the journey as an adult, it's hard to imagine we're not going to make mistakes. One of the things I have come to believe during the now 10-year journey of Good Life Project, and also my life more broadly, is that there truly is no individual good life without there also being a more collective and inclusive path for a societal good life. We are all interconnected. And a key part of this more expansive aspiration is about planting seeds, starting with younger generations. So how do you raise kids to create a more equitable and

inclusive society? One where we're not afraid to acknowledge and discuss beautiful experiences while also addressing hard truths in a way that steeps us in reality, invites everyone into the conversation, and compels us from the earliest days to start thinking about and then doing the work needed to create more possibility, equality, and opportunity for all, regardless of race, socioeconomic status, religion, age, ability, or beyond. And that's where we're headed with today's guest, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi. He's the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in Humanities at Boston University, founding director of the BU Center for Anti-Racist Research, a contributing writer at The Atlantic, CBS News racial justice contributor, and the host

of the Be Anti-Racist podcast. Dr. Kendi is also the author of many highly acclaimed books, including Stent from the Beginning, The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for nonfiction, making him the youngest ever winner of that award, by the way. He's also produced five straight number one New York Times bestsellers, including How to Be an Antiracist, Antiracist Baby, and Stamped, Racism, Antiracism, and You, co-authored by Jason Reynolds. In 2020, Time Magazine named Dr. Kennedy one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He was awarded a 2021 MacArthur Genius Grant and his new book, How to Raise an Antiracist. It takes us into the core ideas around bringing up kids in our roles as caretakers, parents, educators, community members, in a way that opens their minds, their hearts and eyes to both our

history and to the work still to be done to decrease inequality and increase equality. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes.

The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. January 24th.

Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him! We need him! Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. Congrats on the new book, by the way. It is so deeply wise and needed at this moment in time. Well, thank you. And I'm so glad we're able to talk about it.

Yeah, no, me as well. You know, I think an interesting starting point for our conversation, what I'd love to do is actually take a small step back and center a few of the ideas from how to be an anti-racist, kind of set up the conversation that will take us into the newer book. In that book, I think, you know, one of the central premises is this notion that there's no such thing as, quote, not racist. There's only racist or anti-racist. Tell me more about this. Sure. So let's break it down in different elements. There are racist ideas, and these ideas suggest that a particular racial group is superior or inferior to another racial group in any way. And so essentially, racist ideas connote racial hierarchy. What's the opposite of racial hierarchy? It's racial equality. So there are ideas that explicitly express that the racial groups are equals. If we think about policies, you have policies that are leading to or maintaining racial inequities or creating equity and justice between racial groups.

And then you have individuals who are either in any given moment expressing racist or anti-racist ideas when talking about race or supporting policies that are leading to inequity or equity. Oftentimes when people express a racist idea or support a racist policy and someone else points it out, the typical defensive posture of that person is to say, I'm not racist. That's really been the only conception that I've been able to truly find that's consistent about the term not racist. And so that's why I've been able to truly find that's consistent about the term not racist. And so that's why I've urged people to understand that the opposite of racist isn't not racist, it's anti-racist. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting also the way that you describe it, the language you use is very precise and it feels like it is pulling it away from an identity level thing and also saying, let's talk about behavior rather than saying, I'm quote, are or as being either racist or anti-racist, rather than saying have found is there's been so many people over the course of

history who have expressed racist and anti-racist ideas, sometimes in the same speech, in the same paragraph. And so how do you identify that person as a racist or anti-racist inherently, like that's who they are. How do you identify a person as racist or anti-racist when it comes to a criminal legal system? They're supportive of of policies that maintain the injustices. But when it comes to education, they're supportive of equitable policies. Well, what you can do is say when they're supporting racist policies, they're being racist. When they're expressing anti-racist ideas, they're being anti-racist. So you can understand this as a descriptive term, as almost indeed like a behavior. The question is, what is a person doing or saying or being or not doing in

any given moment? And you can then recognize that people have the capacity to change. They have the capacity to be racist one moment and anti-racist, you know, in the next moment. By sort of bringing it to the conversation that way, it feels like when you dissociate it from this identity level, almost quote trait, like capital T trait, it opens up the conversation to change to evolution because it says this is a part of who we are. It's how we are. And that is subject to constant questioning, challenging and evolution. You also talk about a couple of misperceptions that I think are important to explore a little bit also. And one is this notion that racist policies

lead to racist behavior, not the other way around, which I think was counterintuitive the first time I read that from you. But then it really, as you deepen into it, it makes so much sense. Tell me a bit more about this misperception and why you sort of reverse what folks may think. in the beginning, and I was researching racist ideas, one of the things I realized I had to do was distinguish between a producer of racist ideas and a consumer. And I specifically and explicitly decided to really chronicle the people who were producing these ideas.

And so once I zeroed in on those people who were producing racist ideas, it became pretty apparent why they were producing racist ideas. And oftentimes it wasn't because they were ignorant or hateful. Oftentimes it was to either defend an existing racist policy or to justify a campaign for a new one. And typically those policies benefited them, whether it was someone who was enslaving people and making a tremendous amount of money and they wanted to continue to have the legal ability to do so, whether it was somebody who was an elected official based on disenfranchised Black voters, and they wanted to continue to have the ability to do that, or other sort of powerful people in our society. And so it became blatantly apparent to me that indeed the ideas were emerging to

justify the policies, but more specifically, the ideas were emerging to normalize the racial inequities that were coming out of those policies so that everyday people, the consumers, could then see, let's say, Black people as the cause of inequities, meaning their behaviors and their cultures, as opposed to the actual policies that were their true sort of roots. And so what it did for powerful people, it deflected, it allowed for them to deflect the, you know, what or even who was the problem. And now I think for the consumers, it's a little bit of a different calculus. But I think when we think of really the roots of racist ideas and policies, those roots

are not ignorance and hate as we've long been taught or even behavior. Those roots are power and policy. It makes sense when you lay it out that way. One of the other misperceptions that was really part of what I saw as the Corby argument in that earlier book, how to be an anti-racist, is also similar to a conversation I've had with a good friend of mine, Rev. Angel Keodo Williams, over a period of years, which is this notion of questioning who is actually harmed by racism. And the community is broader than I think so many realize. Yes, it's the people who are directly subject to the policies and the behaviors and the language, but it's bigger than that as well.

It is. And I think in recent years, more and more writers and policy experts and scholars have pointed out how historically and currently white people in particular, when compared to, let's say, people of color, or I should say people of color are more likely to be harmed. But when you compare the effects of racist policies on white people versus the effects of anti-racist policies on white people, white people typically benefit more from anti-racist policies. So to give an example, many of the voter suppression policies that have particularly emerged over the last year, those policy studies are showing are directly going to make it harder for Black, Brown, and Indigenous people to vote. It's going to be the hardest for them,

but those policies are also going to make it harder, though not as hard, for many white senior citizens to vote, for many white low-income people to vote, for many white students to vote, for many white liberals for their votes to matter. And so it actually has a broader effect than merely people of color. And I think that allows even white people to see, for instance, how racism is harmful to their livelihood as well. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting when you really start to look at how broad the impact can be and how deep it goes into the fiber of so many different people's lives. You hate to think, well, some folks might need that external motivation of self-interest or seeing how they're affected to do something beyond being driven by a sense of right action or empathy or compassion.

But it's interesting to sort of like add that to the combination of acknowledgements and arguments when you're saying, okay, so what are the things that would really open your eyes to stand in a place of affecting change? Well, yeah. And I mean, the way in which racist power or racist policymakers have sold these racist policies to white people has been to say, you're going to benefit from them. I mean, they've said that directly and indirectly. Now they're more likely to dog whistle it. But over the course of history, that has been the primary refrain to everyday, ordinary white people who are low and middle income. And historically, scholars of racism

have reinforced that idea. And I think what we're showing now that actually that idea is not even true. Yeah, when you were working on that original book, and actually there was a stamp before that, it seems like there's been this five or six year window or so where in addition to your work in academia, as a historian, in policy development, and in teaching, you have been writing and writing and writing and writing. The pace and the volume of what you have created and are offering out to

the world over the last five years is stunning. It really is breathtaking. And you have this new book, How to Raise an Antiracist, and I want to dive into that, the motivation behind it. I want to ask a broader question because it's on my mind. During this same window over the last chunk of years, you become a dad. You also were diagnosed and treated for stage four cancer. Do you feel like beyond the immediacy and the urgency of the need for a call to action given the state of society, that your personal health diagnosis, the fact that it happened simultaneously with you becoming a dad, it feels like there's a bigger urgency to the work that you're doing today. And I'm wondering, you know, from the outside looking in, that's what I

perceive is, does it feel that way to you from the inside out? Oh, without question. I mean, I always had a sense of urgency about this work, but certainly after being diagnosed with a disease that kills nearly nine out of 10 people in five years, it forced me to reckon with my own mortality. It forced me to realize that I don't have necessarily time or I may not have time. And so the concept of, oh, well, I'll do this in 10 years or five years from now or no longer sort of registered with me in the same way. And so I think that, you know, certainly the cancer diagnosis and still being within that five-year window has, you know, has certainly led to greater, you know, amounts of urgency. And I also think moving into recognizing the importance of speaking to or writing to children or even the caretakers of children have sort of opened new lanes that I could be sort of writing for or writing with simultaneously, but it's made

it much harder because, you know, writing a picture book, as an example, like Goodnight Racism, is very different than writing a book for adults, like how to raise an anti-racist. So that's been extremely difficult. But yeah, I think the combined urgency of our society and what's been happening in the last five years with my own personal urgency based on, you know, my diagnosis with cancer has combined to lead to sort of what I've been doing. Yeah. I'm stunned just by the volume and the pace and the depth of what you've been offering out and also the breadth of it, like you just shared. You have this deeply wise, academic, heavily researched, pointed to a certain group of people, and then you're speaking to kids and then you're speaking to caretakers, which is as a writer, just like looking at it from that perspective, it's not full throttle lane changes, but it's enough so that it's challenging to be functioning and operating and speaking in all those different ways to all those different people.

Yet the way that you're doing it is really powerful and complimentary, which I think really does bring us to the newest book, How to Raise an Antiracist. And it sounds like maybe what you were just sharing is part of the basis for why this book needed to exist. But I'm wondering if there's, was there something specific that triggered you me to write this book was the realization that the very people who are the least likely to engage and teach about racism, which is young people. And that realization, that crisis really is, I think, what ultimately motivated me to write this book. And I think young people themselves, particularly in the summer of 2020, as they were speaking out about that very issue, particularly to their teachers and parents who then will in turn speak to me, it sort of was a further motivator to produce this. Yeah. I would imagine that many were coming to you saying, we're not entirely equipped to handle this. And what are the important parts of this conversation?

How do we step into them? This feels to me like it's almost a response to that urgency and those types of questions. And actually what was striking was I was asking myself the same questions as well since I became a father in witch. And so I realized that writing such a book would not only be helpful for other families and other sort of schools and teachers, but it would be helpful for

me and my daughter because I could have this sort of, of research that really serves as the backbone of this book to understand the types of decisions that I should be making, you know, with my daughter on a daily basis. And I, of course, thought that I knew, as many parents, you know, I think we think that we know, but to really come face to face with a century of research that scientists and scholars have conducted on the racial attitudes of children from newborn do have the capacity for our kids to, you know, to be anti-racist, I think fills me with a tremendous sense of knowledge. Because I think in many ways, as parents, we oftentimes feel like we're at a loss, like we just don't know. And I think we second guess ourselves. And so I just feel much better armed to have these conversations with my daughter to build an anti-racist environment to raise her in.

Yeah, no, that still resonates with me. And it's funny when you see in many ways as parents, we feel not well-gifted. I'm thinking to myself in every way as a parent, it's like, it just like waking up every day and doing the best I can. You know, but it's fascinating to me also, because when you write, you draw on incredible levels of research. And at the same time, you've made a decision in the writing process and the publishing process to also bring yourself, to bring your own humanity, your own struggles, your own thoughts, your own personal stories, and those of your family into the narrative. So this weaves between here's really powerful academic research that shows us we don't have to guess. And at the same time, you're showing your own personal

exploration of these, sometimes quote, getting it right, sometimes struggling, sometimes getting it wrong. And I think that dynamic, you bringing yourself into it in that way and then bolstering with research is sort of like you're teeing this book up and how to be an anti-racist and other work. I've been fascinated by the mechanism of almost you saying, I'm on a personal quest because I had this need and these questions and these have been things that have gone on in my own life. And it's an interesting frame to say, rather than here's a book of research and I'm telling you I have it all figured out and this is what to do. You're kind of saying like I'm walking alongside you in no small way and figuring out this with you. And I happen to have the benefit of having

built my life and my career in a way that allows me to really go deep into this and share what I'm learning. And I was curious about the decisions as a writer and as somebody who's creating these things in that interplay of personal narrative, personal quest, personal journey, and powerful academic research that points us all in a better direction. So I think for me, certainly I'm more inclined to just write a book outlining the academic research being academic. But at the same time, when I was really trying to parcel out, based on the research, the difference between being racist and being anti-racist, one of the defining features of being anti-racist

was having the capacity to really, truly self-reflect, to be self-critical, to recognize that being anti-racist isn't a destination, it's a journey. And particularly if you're starting the journey as an adult, it's hard to imagine we're not going to make mistakes. And so I didn't know how to convey that without showing it. And so I think that's the reason why I conveyed that in that way and how to be an anti-racist. But I think specifically with how to raise an anti-racist, I know as a parent in particular, and certainly, you know, as an educator, it just doesn't, for me, when somebody is writing a book on parenting or teaching or caregiving, and they present themselves as having

figured it all out, it just doesn't seem authentic to me. And so I think to me, conveying that as a parent, certainly there are many mistakes that I've made or that I would have made differently, I think to me seem more authentic to caregivers. But then I also think it would also allow people to, if I'm sharing my struggles, I think it opens people to think about their own struggles. And I just don't think lecturing to people has that same effect. Yeah, so agree that your vulnerability and your personal stories, I think allows people to step into that same space themselves and open and a space of self-examination and

saying, huh, okay, I'm're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun.

January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk.

One of the things that you bring up fairly early in the conversation is this notion of how we raise a child depends at least in part on how we racially socialize a child. And you introduce these four forms of racial socialization, two of them being anti-racist and two of them racist. Walk me through these four different things, if that's good with you. Sure. So the most well-known racist form of racial socialization of children is called, we can understand it as promotion of mistrust. When you actively share or say to your child that a particular racial group, that there's a problem with those racial groups or racial group. But in our days, in our time, I should say, people typically don't say, don't play with those Black kids. They say, don't play with those kids, even though all those kids happen to be Black and their kids can see what they're actually saying. And there's promotion of mistrust. There is also

preparation for racism, which is an anti-racist form of racial socialization, which is you actively talking to your child about racism, about skin colors, about all the skin colors being equals, about this recognition that certain people are going to say that certain skin colors are better or worse, figuring out ways through books and other means to have these conversations so that the child is prepared when they hear those racist messages, they can know that they're wrong. And then there is cultural socialization, which is another anti-racist form of socialization, if it's done right. And that is, you know, teaching your child about their own culture and their own history, no matter their sort of racial or ethnic background, but not only teaching them about their own culture and what's unique and distinct

about their own culture and history, also figuring out ways to immerse them in the cultures of other peoples and the histories of other people so that they can understand what's distinct about those cultures and histories. And then finally, most importantly, teaching the child what's the same about their own culture and the cultures of others. So building those conceptual bridges so that they can recognize that we're all different, but we're all the same. And then finally, the second form of racist socialization is what's called colorblind parenting, which is the very opposite of the anti-racist form of socialization, which is preparation for racism. It is this belief that kids don't see color, to talk to a kid about race is to make them racist. And it's the belief that when a kid asks questions about race, the response is don't talk about that. When in fact, when we socialize

in that way, we're actually creating conditions in which our kids are the most vulnerable to hearing and internalizing racist messages. And they're not going to talk to us about them because we've told them to not do so. Yeah. And I mean, that last one in particular, that ends up becoming a larger topic of conversation throughout the book. And it is this broad idea that there's this thing that we quote, just don't talk about. And I wonder what your take is on why,

like what's the why behind people saying, we don't talk about it. Is it more rooted in a lack of skills and understanding? Is it rooted in a lack of skills and understanding? Is it rooted in a lack of knowledge? I don't actually know enough to have a constructive conversation about this. Is it something broader cultural or a weaving of all of these things? I think it's a weaving of all of them. I mean, certainly there are many, when we think about many different topics, typically when we recognize we don't know

something about it, we don't feel comfortable talking to our kids about it. And then with some of those topics, we're like, okay, it's important for me to have this conversation, so I need to learn about it. And then with other topics, we're like, it's not important, so I'm not going to learn about it, and I'm not going to talk to my kids about it. Certainly, there are parents who don't want to make a mistake and are fearful of saying the wrong thing because they think the wrong thing will then lead their child to be racist, which they don't want. So the solution is just to not say anything. There are certainly parents who have internalized the idea that no one should be identifying by race, and the people who identify

by race are the true racists. And because we know that race doesn't exist scientifically, and the response to that is race doesn't exist scientifically, but racism does. And the only reason we're talking about race is because you can't talk about racism without talking about race. And I think other parents, particularly parents of color, are concerned about affecting the joy of their kids. Like they don't want to expose their kids to one of the most ugly aspects of our society and what could happen to them because of their skin color or because of their background. Or white parents don't want their child to feel guilty. So there are all these feelings that are wrapped up into and thoughts as to why

we don't engage them. And we imagine that we're protecting the kids by not engaging them. And I think that the central argument of my book is actually we're protecting them by engaging them. Because if this is the reality of the world around them, at some point they will leave the protective environment of the family, the protective environment to the extent that it is. And it's almost like at some point, all of these things are going to be learned in an experience. Are they going to be learned through your own sometimes brutal experience in the real world without the benefit of the influence of a caregiver or teacher or parent, and maybe the ability to build knowledge and skills

earlier on that might help navigate the world to come. Exactly. And I think we assume also as adults that if it's hard for us to talk about race and racism, it must be even harder for kids, but it's actually much easier. They don't come with the baggage that we do. And they have a very clear sense of right and wrong, fairness and unfairness. By the time we become adults, that becomes more muddled, which makes it harder for us to have these conversations. And so it's actually easier for young children.

It's easier to learn something than it is to unlearn and learn something simultaneously. And just like with learning a new complex language, if we're immersing, it's easier for young people to learn a complex language than it is for adults. And finally, I think that we just have to accept that study after study shows that young children, whether we're talking about white children or children of color, on average typically have one recent scholar called white bias, in which they view white people as superior. That's what's normal. Like most kids, particularly by the time of preschool, have that perspective. This isn't a theoretical exercise of what could happen. This is an actual, there's actual data about what is happening because we're not counteracting those

ideas with young children, because we're assuming that race is too sophisticated for kids to understand, because we don't recognize that dark is ugly, dark is bad, is a simple idea that even a two-year-old can understand. And it's interesting, you describe a moment, I think you call it the doll test in the book, where in this one very specific way, the absence of education, the absence of conversation is a big part of this. And then there are all these other indicators. There are all these other things that weave into the experience of young kids, especially. Share your experience with your daughter, Imani, early on and sort of like your observations

around her playing with dolls in the classroom and some assumptions and what ends up being the broader truth. Yeah, Imani was at our daycare when she was a little over one years old and I came to pick her up one day and she was playing with a doll that looked white. And I tossed the doll to the side so we can leave. And of course she was not happy. Or I shouldn't say of course, because typically when we would arrive, she'd be happy to leave no matter what she was not happy. And, or I shouldn't say of course, because typically when we would arrive, she'd be happy to leave no matter what she was playing with. But this doll she was particularly connected to. And as each day went by, whether my wife and I picked her up, it became harder and harder to get her to leave the doll to the point at which she had a tantrum tantrum, you know,

I think on the fourth day. On the fifth day, the two of us came to pick her up and she really loves it when both of us come and pick her up. So she actually tossed the doll to the side and came and got us, I should say, came and hugged us. But then that's when I decided to go look around the daycare to the toy box. And that's when I found, because let me take a step back. We were assuming, we didn't know what to make of her being so connected to this white doll. We were trying to figure out, was she connected to the doll or was she connected to the whiteness of the doll? And we had no idea. And we were concerned that she may have already internalized this idea of white bias, which of course could have led her

to be so attached to this white doll. And so on that fifth day, when I actually looked at the toy box, I found that all the dolls pretty much looked white. So she didn't even have a choice, but between different looking dolls. And I think it became a metaphor for the fact that in too many cases, our kids do not have a choice. You know, what they're seeing in their communities, what they're seeing in their toy boxes, what they're seeing in their media, what they're seeing in their curriculums, what they're seeing in the books that's being read to them, the people, the characters, the dolls are typically white. And what we don't realize is we're conveying to kids very directly who or what colors or what skin colors we value and simultaneously conveying to

them who we don't. And then we wonder why they've internalized, you know, these notions of white bias by preschool. It just makes so much sense. You know, you also, in that conversation, you also describe, you sort of zoom the lens out and say, you know, if you look traditionally at the history of toys and how we've engaged kids with play in the post-war era, you know, that Black people are almost entirely excluded from representation broadly in games and toys and imagery around it. So it's, as you're saying that the thing that interestingly or oddly popped into my mind was at least in my, from my knowledge, the very recent introduction of band-aids that are not just light, but, you know, of a full

spectrum of color on the band-aids. And if you have little kids who are often getting scrapes and boo-boos and bruises and, you know, like the parents, like the way that you make them feel good is to put a band-aid on it. And that band-aid, simply the color of the band-aid represents a color that's different from them. Like what's the subliminal message that's being conveyed there? Is it just the band-aid or is it the fact that now I have something lighter on my skin? And it's not explicit, but it's there. It is there. And we as adults, if we just assume it's not a big deal, that doesn't mean it isn't a big deal for young people. And it doesn't mean that it's part of a larger ecosystem of similar things that they're seeing.

Because it isn't just, you know, a dark-skinned child who's putting on a Band-Aid that is more pertinent to somebody who is white, it's also the white child looking at their arm with their Band-Aid and the dark-skinned child with their arm and their Band-Aid and seeing that the Band-Aid is normalizing them and denormalizing the dark-skinned child, which then leads to the white child not coming home and saying, I want to be dark, but the dark-skinned child, because they actually prefer being white or have been taught to prefer being white, while the dark-skinned child comes home, as many do, particularly by the time they're three or four or five or six years old, saying, I want to be white, or I want my eyes to be different, or I want my hair to be different. And then the parents,

particularly parents of color, how do you even respond to that? And it's typically devastating for many parents. Yeah. Which kind of brings us also to, I think, the topic of empathy, which is something that you write about as well. And the notion that if we're really looking at raising empathetic kids, then caregivers, parents, teachers, we've got to look at ourselves also. And you also cite research that shows how empathy, or at least the building blocks for empathy, touched down really early in a kid's life. Yeah. I mean, as early as two and a half years old, particularly between two and a half to about three years and nine months. That's a critical period of children building and understanding empathy. During that period, kids are starting to see

when someone else hurts their hand, they're beginning to look at their own hands and they're being able to connect the pain of others, or I should say, feel the pain of others. The question though, is who are they being raised to have empathy for? And so are they being raised to have empathy for everyone, no matter their skin color or background or the language they speak or how they worship, or are they being raised to just have empathy for people who look like them and live like them? And I think as parents and teachers, we have to be very explicit to ensure

that they can maintain or gain empathy for everyone because that, you know, studies show that to be anti-racist obviously is to be empathetic and to be empathetic lends itself to being anti-racist. So that's one of the reasons why, you know, indeed, you know, a chapter was built on empathy, particularly when I was in the hospital after my major surgeries for cancer. And my daughter came into the hospital room and I could tell, and she was about two years old, and I can tell and see that she was feeling the pain that she saw me feeling. In that conversation, you also introduced this notion of something you describe as inductive discipline, inviting caregivers to practice this. This was a new phrase to me. I thought it was fascinating. Yeah. So I think it's important for us as parents to have an understanding that how we punish

is going to lead to us either teaching our kids to be bullies or teaching our kids to be empathetic. So I should say not how we punish. I should say there are really two approaches to responding to a child when they misbehave. There's a punishment approach and there's the approach of inductive discipline. And with inductive discipline, let's say if Katie hits Johnny, there are two ways we can respond. We can respond by saying, don't hit Johnny, go take a timeout or spank or, you know, take something away, punish the child. Or we can respond, how do you think what you did made him feel? And that then starts a conversation that causes the child to first be empathetic to the person that they hit and then potentially allows the child to repair or restore whatever harm they have caused. Like it becomes on them to address the harm that they've caused in the world while also

having an understanding of that harm. And that then, you know, according to researchers, makes a child less likely to A, engage, hit somebody because they're thinking about that impact. And secondly, it makes a child less likely to hit someone else because they have a growing sense of empathy. Yeah, that makes so much sense. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun.

January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him! We need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk.

We were recently talking to one of our daughter's friends who was in this wilderness school in the middle of the mountains in Colorado. And it was a small sort of self-contained thing. And sort of the early indoctrination into the school was the kids were all taught a series of processes for handling conflict. And one of them was similar to, I guess it probably falls into this category of inductive discipline, whereas if somebody does something that is harmful to themselves, but also harmful to the community, rather than this sort of like punishment or expulsion, part of the solution was, you know, the whole community got called together, including the students, the aides, the teachers that, you

know, like everybody, administrators in a room, there are about 50 of them. And the student would hear from every single one of them about how the behavior affected them and how, you know, it wasn't just about this one person, which sounds similar in a lot of ways. Like, let's actually see how we don't exist in isolation and how other people look and speak and walk and believe and talk differently can be really powerfully affected by what we do. I wonder why things like that or things like what you're describing, these processes, aren't just baked into the fundamental things that kids are taught at the earliest age, because it just seems so logical that they should be. I wish it was, but I think the major reason why it is not is because we live in a punishment oriented society. And even our criminal legal system has a punishment orientation. Of course, there was a time in which rehabilitation or restorative justice was something that was on the national radar.

But particularly over the last 50 years, sort of this carceral punishment sort of oriented state in which people are deemed essentially to be criminals who thereby need to be who are dangerous and need to be locked away. If that's our perspective with adults, of course, it's going to be our perspective as we raise our children. So in a way, we're being socialized to respond to conflict with punishment and exclusion. And certainly, that's how we respond to our children. We're all seeing how well that's been working. Exactly. Another notion that you raised, which I thought was fascinating, was this idea, you know, we've been talking about things that you can sort of explicitly engage in. But the more subtle, the nonverbal ways that we model behavior, that we do things. There's research that you share that show that it really powerfully in the context of race and behavior and action, those things, when we think we're not actually communicating

something, but the way that we are moving through our world in the presence of a child actually is incredibly powerful in transmitting behavior and knowledge to them, even though we might not realize that we're doing it. And sometimes in very destructive ways. Yeah. And I think that was, for me, particularly as a father, one of the most revealing aspects of the research. Because I think to know that we're really always speaking to our kids about race based

on the environment we put them in, based on things we're not saying, based on even the choices we're making of who we befriend. One study found that the racial attitude of white children are more consistent with the number of interracial friendships the mother has, the white mother has, than the racial attitudes of the mother. And why would that be the case? Well, I mean, it makes sense. If you bring who you bring to your home, who you befriend is an expression of who you value. And so we're speaking to our kids, even the racial makeup of our friends. And certainly we're speaking to kids when we walk down the street and a Black male is approaching. And unlike the white male we just passed, our child sees us get scared. We're speaking to our kids about who's dangerous. When pretty much all of the books or the vast majority of the books, the characters in those

books are a particular race, we're speaking to our kids about who matters. That was sort of striking, just how much nonverbal communication is impactful. And indeed, what's also striking is because we don't actively talk to our kids, particularly young kids, about race and racism, that leads to their perceptions of our racial ideas being more impactful than our actual racial ideas. And they're determining those perceptions based on all this nonverbal language. Yeah. It's like, we don't realize that we're actually speaking to them without speaking to them. And then the absence of explicit conversation, then it just, the only message that they can

get is that is what our actions are telling them, which may be the exact opposite of and teachers, and how it can be profoundly different and how that can just really powerfully affect the trajectory of a child through their educational experience. Indeed, you know, studies have been, recent academic research has been finding, for instance, that Black students tend to have a better long-term effect when they have a Black teacher in elementary school in particular, even a single Black teacher that's going to lead them to be more likely to graduate from high school and to go on to college, you know, as an example. And one of the reasons that researchers are finding for that is because, very simply, Black teachers tend to have higher expectations for the same Black student

as white teachers do. And obviously, your expectations for a student are going to come across, we just talked about nonverbal ways, a host of nonverbal, you know, and verbal sort of ways that ultimately is going to be helpful or harmful, you know, to that child. What was also fascinating is teachers generally have the highest expectations for white and Asian students. And one of the ways that actually can be harmful to white and Asian students is when you have a white and Asian or Asian student who is sort of expressing or conveying, let's say, that they may have a learning disability. They're less likely to be recommended for testing and for special care, because the people aren't necessarily looking out for that. Actually, teachers have the highest expectations for Asian students are the least likely to be

referred for testing. And I think that one of the causes of that is indeed these expectations. We're looking at children in terms of their race and making determinations as opposed to looking at the individual qualities or what the individual behavior of students. And that's having a host of effects for all students. Yeah. I mean, across the board, on the one hand, you're ignoring people who need help. And the other hand, you're sort of classifying people as rising to lower set of expectations. It's incredibly fraught. What you write in, because you have a whole chapter on preteen disability and the relationship between ableism and racism,

sharing a story about your brother, actually, and how he was diagnosed early on with a speech impediment and learning disability. And that was changed at some point to an intellectual disability, which radically changes the expectations and the availability of resources. And your parents said, no, no, no, no, we need to fight this because our kid needs these resources and is fully capable. And we're able to have the diagnosis reverted back to what was appropriate. But there does

seem to be this fascinating and fraught relationship between the notions of ableism and racism. I mean, and I would imagine that's both in kids and just across the board as adults as well. There is. And I mean, when you look at all of the studies and the data of particularly what kids with disabilities face, but even more specifically, kids of color with disabilities face. I mean, it is just an incredible sort of crisis from the greater likelihood to diagnose them with more serious or stigmatizing disabilities to the inability to provide because of their background care for disability because they assume they are not intelligent, as opposed to recognizing that, no, we're all equals. And maybe this child is not struggling

to learn because they're Black, but because of a disability to a whole host of other, you know, matters. And that's why it was very important for me to talk about this and how to raise an anti-racist. Yeah. I mean, we've sort of dropped into a number of the ideas and topics and invitations throughout the book. And I think it's powerful. And there's so much more to explore. Such a powerful book. A book that I feel like, you know, it should be in the hands of educators and parents and caregivers and just anyone who wants to understand how we might think differently about expanding the way that our kids step into adulthood with more empathy and more of an orientation towards anti-racism. I always wrap with the same question. So in this container,

Good Life Project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? where there's truly equal opportunity, a society where there's an orientation to ensuring that power is being leveraged so that people can indeed live a good life. Thank you. Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode, say that you'll also love the conversation that we had with Austin Channing Brown about inviting ourselves to play a part

in creating a more equal and inclusive society. You'll find a link to Austin's episode in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you appreciate the work that we've been doing here on Good Life Project, go check out my new book, Sparked. It'll reveal some incredibly eye-opening things about maybe one of your favorite subjects, you, and then show you how to tap these insights to reimagine and reinvent work as a source of meaning, purpose, and joy. You'll find a link in the show notes, or you can also find it at your favorite bookseller now. Until next time,

I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary.