Chocolate, slave labor, my four-year-old, and our local supermarket

Chocolate, slave labor, my four-year-old, and our local supermarket

by Sachi Feris Last Halloween, a friend posted this link on Facebook about child slave labor in the cocoa industry (in West Africa). As a chocolate-obsessed person, I was embarrassed that this injustice was not on my radar. Since then,…

“One Hundred Years of Lynching:” Coming to Terms With America’s Violent Past

“One Hundred Years of Lynching:” Coming to Terms With America’s Violent Past

by guest blogger Pedro A. Noguera, Ph. D When I moved back to NY in 2000, one of the first things I did with my children was to take them to visit the Museum of Natural History. I had always enjoyed…

What happened when I defined sexism for my daughter

What happened when I defined sexism for my daughter

by guest blogger Jennifer Harvey Soccer’s been in my blood since I was little. Watching my kids learn to love it has been awesome. For the first time last fall, my seven-year-old played with girls instead of playing co-ed. I wasn’t…

“You should not oppress the stranger, because we were strangers…”: Race, Justice, and Freedom at Hebrew School

“You should not oppress the stranger, because we were strangers…”: Race, Justice, and Freedom at Hebrew School

by guest blogger Ari Lev Fornari Standing in front of a room of about 140 K-seventh grade students and their parents on the Sunday before Martin Luther King Junior Day, I introduce the topic for the day: Race, Justice, and…

Taking off my racial color-blind lens

Taking off my racial color-blind lens

by guest blogger Kelly Cutler Let’s be honest, what does a White woman like myself know about raising race conscious children?! I was raised in predominantly White, middle-class suburb with a culture that emphasized meritocracy, the idea that individuals succeed…

How my White family will fight Islamaphobia

How my White family will fight Islamaphobia

by guest blogger Zoë Williams This post is part of a week-long series highlighting supporters of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), both in their parenting of race-conscious children and their activist work for racial justice. SURJ is a national network of…

A is for Anti-Racism

by guest blogger Amy Dudley This post is part of a week-long series highlighting supporters of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), both in their parenting of race-conscious children and their activist work for racial justice. SURJ is a national…

"Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What (Colors) Do You See?"

“Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What (Colors) Do You See?”

by Sachi Feris I have been reading the book, “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?” by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle for over a decade to my kindergarten Spanish students (“Oso pardo, oso pardo, que ves ahi?”)….

“The world is unfair”: My head-on approach to talking about homelessness with my daughter

“The world is unfair”: My head-on approach to talking about homelessness with my daughter

by Sachi Feris I want my daughter to see people who are homeless as people. I don’t want her to avert her eyes, as so many adults do when confronted with the reality of homelessness. One day, I saw my…

In light of Spring Valley (Part Two): Activism, the police, and my three-and-a-half-year-old

In light of Spring Valley (Part Two): Activism, the police, and my three-and-a-half-year-old

by Sachi Feris Almost a year ago, when I was launching Raising Race Conscious Children, I wrote a post about what I would say to my future four-year-old about Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Well, my daughter is almost three-and-a-half…