In this episode of Raising Anti-Racist Kids, we use stories from our family’s recent road trip through the South to visit sites tied to the Civil Rights Movement as a way to examine the role of the white parent in a family like ours. We planned the trip around the kids, yes, but also made sure to organize our outings to give Tabitha space as a Black woman to process the sites and experiences on her own time. We also talk about our ongoing efforts to teach our kids real history, so they can organically connect the dots to what they encounter in today’s world, while still centering joy in their experiences. Below, a lightly edited transcript from our conversation. We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments! Raising Antiracist Kids is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Tabitha: Adam and I have a multiracial family. I am a Black multiracial Trinidadian American immigrant woman, and Adam is a… Adam: White, Ashkenazi Jewish, Minnesotan man. Tabitha: And we just wrapped up a trip to a couple of Southern states where we took our kids on a civil rights history road trip, and there were a couple instances where we had to really think through how we were going to show up as a multiracial family, both as a whole and as individuals. There were a couple things that we were juggling. We have two small kids, our kids are nine and four, and we wanted to find activities that they can learn from that would be meaningful to them at their ages. But for me, it was the first time that I was experiencing some of this and I wanted to make sure that I was able to be present and process all of the emotions that came up, without thinking about having to run after children, having to make sure that the kids weren't knocking things over, that they were being reverent in certain spaces. So we decided for some of the sites that you would take the kids to more kid-centered activities since you had been to some of these sites. And I would go to these sites and experience them on my own. Adam: Yeah, and you actually wrote about this in the last newsletter where you talked a little bit about when we visited the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana. You went ahead. I mean, that was one site, so we couldn't really split up. You went ahead and I found a way to help bring the kids along because that was particularly important. And you still felt that whiteness had a way of overpowering your experience. In some ways, Tabitha: I wouldn't say it overpowered my experience. I would say that it seeped in. There were instances where I knew that I wanted to process it at my own pace and without having to think about the white people in the group that we were with. But there were instances where there were white people around me — visiting strangers — who would step in front of me while I was looking at sites and displays. So that was something that I also noticed — that whiteness still presented in that space in a kind of dominant way. Adam: So then when we got to Montgomery, Alabama, and we did a lot of really fun things with the kids and tried to keep them engaged. We did some research beforehand about what museum would be most kid-friendly. We talked to a couple people and everybody agreed that the Legacy Museum from the Equal Justice Initiative was not kid friendly. It's not set up to be kid friendly. It's not set up to be something where you want to bring a four and a nine-year-old. Tabitha: Let's define kids, right, because I think our nine-year-old would have been able to go through it with me and be able to process some of the experiences and so forth. But our four-year-old definitely would want to be running around. She would want to be touching things. And it was a very reverent space. There were parts of the installations and so forth that were very honest and upfront about the impacts of slavery and about how it showed up in different spaces on bodies and so forth. We wanted to be mindful of bringing the kids into spaces where they can learn, but that were kid appropriate, age appropriate and so forth. I think you have to know your kid, first of all. You have to know if you've been having these conversations with them before, if they're ready to see some of these things and so forth. It could be kid appropriate for some kids, but I would recommend maybe for kids that are like 10 and older. But because of the nature of me wanting to be present and not have to worry about pretty much anybody else around me — I just wanted to be present and to process it without, to be honest, without parenting at the same time. That's something that we had to juggle: how much of the trip were we able to be present for as parents? And how much of the trip did I want to be present for as a Black woman, as a Black immigrant woman who didn't learn this history in school? Adam: Yeah, I mean, who was the trip for? Because the trip was a family adventure, but a lot of these things that we're learning, we can teach to the nine-year-old, we can teach to the four-year-old in different ways. This in particular, I mean it's not just this site, but this particular site, the way that they present the information, the way that it sort of, when I went, it got at my soul just in the presentation of depictions. I remember the dirt. I remember that they collected from different sites of lynchings. I remember just all these things where if you went and you had to worry about him, our son, then that would have been an extra challenge. And my hope, and I think we achieved it, was that we offered the kids a lesson in civil rights. We offered them lessons in understanding the history while also not looking at what you were engaged in and you having to worry about it. As a Black woman in a multiracial family, it's okay for me sometimes to center myself. It's okay for me to say, ‘This is what I need.’ For me. I need to be able to be present in this space and to process this at a pace that is okay for me and not have to worry about the kids, not have to worry about anybody else in our group and so forth. Tabitha: And that was something that I really, to be honest, I struggled with a little bit because I want my son to get this education, I want him to experience these things. So there were moments when I had to make that difficult decision. And I think as parents, as a Black woman in a multiracial family, it's okay for me sometimes to center myself. It's okay for me to say, this is what I need. For me. I need to be able to be present in this space and to process this at a pace that is okay for me and not have to worry about the kids, not have to worry about anybody else in our group and so forth. Adam: So we went to the Rosa Parks Museum and the kids were processing the information with a lot of unique visuals that were really set up for them. And they got the understanding! They're now in an age where, yes, our older kid can take a lot of this information, but even still little bits at a time is much better for him than how an adult looking at history might want to engage in a museum. Tabitha: At the Rosa Parks Museum, there was this installation where there was a bus and there was a simulated ride where there was a speaker that was speaking the story of Rosa Parks' experience. And the kids were able, it was like multi, what do you call it? Adam: Multimedia? Is that what you mean? Tabitha: Multimedia? Yeah. It was multimedia. So the kids were very engaged in it and I was able to join them for that part. And we actually had you and the kids join me for the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, which was outside, and the space was huge. So we didn't have to sort of be mindful of their energy levels and the space and it was engaging for them. So they were able to see parts of it. There was even a moment where I was able to find my name, my last name, St. Bernard, on a wall, which was based on the first census that included Black people after slavery was abolished. So that was interesting for them. They were able to be engaged in that. So we definitely brought them into parts of the experience that made sense for them. We were just very mindful in the planning stages of me as a Black woman being able to process things at the rate and the pace that I was able to. And that brings me back to the original question: what is the responsibility of a white parent in a multiracial family, particularly as it relates to anti-racist parenting? We live in this white dominant, white centered country, and the responsibility of the white parents has to include recognizing and being aware of times where Blackness needs to be centered and where white dominance is trying to intrude and push through. And as a family, as the person with white privilege, you have to be able to use your privilege to push back on that. Adam: Find a way to decenter whiteness, because I can't tell you how to experience something, I can't experience it for you. However, I can take the opportunity to set it up so that you can experience it how you need to. And that was the ultimate goal of a lot of these sites. Throughout our trip, we were really angling to accomplish a few different things that all de-centered whiteness. One was centering the kids as much as possible through games and experiences for them, but then also recognizing that there were experiences that were for us as a family and experiences that were really for you. I have had the opportunity to learn and unlearn a lot of racist history and how that shows up. Tabitha: And I also know that I felt that at Whitney Plantation, and I wasn't the only person because — I don’t know if you saw that note that somebody wrote on the reflection board. They wrote on a little Post-it note, “Why are there white people here?” Because it very much felt like a space where white people definitely need to come and get educated and unlearn and learn. But it was such deep
