Last entry, I wrote about the tendency of many Whites today to avoid talking about race in an effort to appear unbiased. Such strategic colorblindness often takes the form of grown adults—and not just
Emmy-winning, faux-extremist talk show hosts—claiming that they literally don't even see color. Where does this tendency come from?
One of the readers of my last post commented that he wasn't surprised to read the research findings illustrating this type of colorblindness, asserting that he had "seen many parents tell young children they should not ask questions about color or race." And I don't think he's alone in having witnessed this phenomenon.
Not long ago, I was at the grocery store and overheard a young boy, maybe 3-years-old, say to his mother, "look, mom, that man's face is brown." To me, the color of the face of the boy's mother was far more noteworthy. If she were a crayola crayon, she would have been I Just Saw A Ghost Pale. She looked horrified. She actually couldn't even muster the speech to shush her son, but rather sped away like a bank robber fleeing the scene.
It's a curious reaction from parents, this horror at hearing their child acknowledge racial difference. You'd think the boy had said, "look mom, that man is ugly." Or "look, mom, hair plugs!" The reaction of many White parents seems to be to treat the mention of race as tantamount to an insult. And kids inevitably pick up on this.
In a research study just published in Developmental Psychology, researchers at Tufts and Harvard examined just how and when kids learn to talk (or not talk) about race. The researchers, led by Ph.D candidates Evan Apfelbaum and Kristin Pauker, asked elementary school students to play a variation on the children's game Guess Who, in which they had to ask yes-or-no questions to figure out which photo from a set was being held by their partner.
In one version of the game, the children were given a set of White faces that varied by age, body weight, facial expression, and background color among other dimensions. Not surprisingly, older kids were better at the game, were more efficient than their younger counterparts. It took 10- and 11-year-olds fewer questions to successfully complete the game than it took 8- and 9-year-olds. And why wouldn't it? As they get older, kids get better at categorization, at problem solving, at logical reasoning, so their superior performance comes as no surprise.
But an interesting thing happened when race was introduced into the mix. When half the photos were of White faces and half Black faces, suddenly the performance advantage of older kids disappeared. In fact, it actually reversed. That's right, suddenly it was the younger kids who were better at this straightforward task, the younger ones who were quicker to get to the right answer.
Why the reversal? Because the older kids wouldn't ask about race. While 77% of younger children talked about race or skin color, only 37% of the older children did. And this avoidance of race among older kids translated into less efficient performance.
As the researchers explain, whereas infants can perceptually differentiate between racial groups and 5-year-old children often demonstrate knowledge of stereotypes, awareness of moral and social norms typically develops later. It's around the age of 10 that this occurs, that children begin to master taking the perspective of others and the art of impression management in social settings.
In essence, children first learn how to use social categories, how to group people by similar features. And then they start to master a second skill, how not to admit that they notice such categories to begin with. Certainly all the stern parental glares and grocery store shushing contributes to this latter process.
So as my intrepid reader suggests, perhaps it's not surprising to see many Whites trying to avoid race, seeking to appear colorblind. What is more surprising is how deep this tendency runs. That it can lead older kids to underperform on a basic categorization task. And that it comes with social costs as well, such as leading adults to appear less friendly, as detailed in my previous post. In short, for adults as well as for kids, bending over backwards to avoid even the mere mention race can often create more problems than it solves.
So what to do next time your little one points out someone's skin color in public? Do you need to shame them into submission? Instead, why not say, "you're right, and you have white skin"? Or "yes, he does, and you have blonde hair but your sister has brown hair"? Or "that's true, sweetie, but it's not polite to point." There are plenty of ways your kid can embarrass you in public. Why should mentioning race have to be one of them?
Last year I came thisclose to getting the opportunity to put my own advice into practice. My daughter and I pulled up to the produce section, and as I eyed the lettuce she eyed the African-American couple next to us. In particular, she seemed intrigued by the husband, who must have been at least 6'6" and 250 pounds. "Daddy, Daddy, look," I heard her say. Bracing myself, I turned to her, and with the wide-eyed enthusiasm that only the littlest of us can muster, she exclaimed, "he must be the biggest man in the whole wide world." His wife doubled over with laughter, but Mr. Gigantic himself seemed less than amused.
That comment I'm still pondering the appropriate response for. Suggestions are welcome...
