I’m obviously not ok with any kid being taught to be ashamed of their skin colour. Don’t put words into my mouth. Kids should be taught to see each other and respect each other as individuals, to care about each other’s personalities and character rather than define each other by their race first and foremost.
It’s important for kids to learn about racism, I didn’t say anything hat wasn’t important.
But kids should not be taught that they are inherently racist for their skin colour and be made to “interrogate their own race" when it’s not something they chose. Especially in primary school as they don’t have the understanding of nuanced topics like “institutional vs individual racism" and so will interpret it way more simplistically by conflating the two. As they get older like teenage years it’s appropriate to teach critical thinking and to reflect on ways their own behaviour might be influenced by racism but the assumption should not be that they are inherently racist.
Children of colour shouldn’t be taught they are inherently victims either. I’ve heard stories of Black kids coming home telling their parents “I’ll never succeed because of white supremacy" because the narrative they were told is that white supremacy will inevitably make their life a misery. And this is discouraging to them and makes them feel like what’s even the point of trying to succeed if they’re destined to always be held back.
There’s definitely a way to teach these concepts better in school, and history should definitely not shy away from the ways racism manifests in whatever country they are in. For example America shouldn’t just look at slavery and civil rights, but the genocide of Native Americans and the internment of Japanese during WWII.
My country, Australia, actually has much of this kind of history in our curriculum already. We already learn about the genocide of Indigenous Australians by white settlers, Stolen Generations, and how it impacts racism against First Nations people today. We learned about the White Australia Policy and how it was overturned, and the factors that now influence multiculturalism in Australia today.
The way it’s taught in Australia though isn’t designed to make the student feel guilty for something they personally didn’t do. And I went to a school where the majority of students were people of colour, I was the only white person in my friend group, and I didn’t end up seeing my friends as “race first, individual second". I wasn’t colourblind but it certainly didn’t make me second guess my authentic interactions with them. I didn’t hold back from sharing who I was with them out of guilt, and they didn’t either. We all were very dear friends. And that’s the kind of interaction between people of different racial backgrounds that leads to a better world.
