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2001-12-11 | 1:17 p.m.

Well, as so often happens, I've spent so long dreaming up my latest entry that I no longer have time to write it. So it's going to stay stuck in my head. Here's a short, choppy version: I took a test (too many tests, I know) measuring my racial bias toward children at tolerance.org, which is the web site of the Southern Poverty Law Center (<--good place to donate your hard-earned). I was surprised to have displayed "little or no" racial bias toward black children in the test. That's good, because I work with lots of kids when I volunteer at school, but I assumed I would show at least slight racial bias.

I still believe I have some racial bias, regardless of what the test says, but I've been self-correcting it for so long that the gap may be closing at last. I was never a terrible racist but I did grow up in a racist milieu and it is hard to shake that off.

My kids have a better chance than I did. They've always been around children of other races, and not just in a superficial way. Their cousins are half black, for example. I've tried hard to teach them tolerance in a low-key way--by saying "everybody's different" and shrugging when they pointed out in preschool that other kids' skin was darker than theirs, instead of giving earnest speeches about race and tolerance and slavery. This is how I've chosen to deal with a wide range of subjects, including religion and why I don't agree with their teachers on everything (such as the conjecture that Santa has a magic hat that allows him to see into our homes). I thought that too much speechifying would put them on alert that this topic was different somehow; possibly still up for debate. I want them to learn about slavery in school and to be utterly shocked and horrified by the idea, just as we must have been learning about human sacrifices in ancient temples. I want them to associate it with the distant past, and then eventually they can learn about the present-day vestiges of racism and its consequences in people's lives. I'm guessing all this will happen in the next two years.

Of course, I'm willing to admit that my strategy may have backfired. Where feminism is concerned, for example, I'm sorry to say we have much more ground to cover. I always thought it was inviting doubt to tell the girls things like, "A Girl Can Grow Up to Be President, Too!" because it would start the whole ball in motion. Do you know what I mean? Imagine if I said to you, in a peppy sort of adamant way, "Boys can wear shoes, too!" You'd probably think, well, duh, sure they can. But then you might wonder if boys were ever barred from wearing shoes, or if some people think boys shouldn't wear shoes, or what else might compel me to say something so self-evident.

I hope that makes sense.

Anyway, I try not to feel too disappointed and gently nudge them in the right direction when I think they're being too rigid in their thinking. Once, Criminy told me girls couldn't be astronauts. Then I lectured. I found out the other day that they weren't playing kickball at recess, and that only one girl plays while the rest wander around the playground gossiping like little hens. So I urged them to learn the game and play it because it had been a favorite of mine. Actually, in this case, I guess I did a little more than "gently nudge." I went in their classroom and when one of the boys mentioned kickball to me, I told him my girls wanted to play, too, and would he please teach them the game? And he said yes and it was fine. First-graders don't get all wigged-out about such things. That's why they have to be feminists before fourth grade, because by the time they get to fourth grade, it's all set in stone, I suspect. Either you ARE a kickball player, or you aren't. Fourth-grade boys won't teach you (unless they're extraordinary.)

Or maybe I've got it all wrong, I don't know.

In closing, let me say that class bias is the one I worry about most---both in terms of judging and being judged. I'm shooting for genteel poverty, can you tell?

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