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Advice for All Parents
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Raise Your Replacements with Principle
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Why White Parents Should Care
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Examine Your Reluctance to Form Interracial Friendships
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Make Acquaintances Across Color Lines
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Trace Your Family's History of Prejudice
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Provide History That Fosters Pride
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Get the Whole Story - His-story, Her Story, Their Story & Our Story
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Make History a Healing Course
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Sensitize Your Parent-School Organization
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Involve the Community
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Begin the Lessons Early, Teach Responsibility
Infancy Through Preschool
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Teach Identity Through Comparison
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Reflect Reality Through Mirrors, Art and Yourself
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Select the Right Preschool for Your Child
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Don't pretend Discrimination doesn't Exist
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Rise to the Challenge at School
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Forge Ahead Without Hindering Your Child
The Early Elementary School Years
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Tell the Truth About Slavery
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Color Holidays, but Use All Shades of the Truth
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Avoid Cultural Tourism
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Be Careful About what Your Children Read
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Think About How You Define Normal
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Rule Out Discriminatory Remarks
The Upper Elementary School Years
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Insist on Respect
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Nurture and Spread Self-Esteem
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Know Your Child's Role Models
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Help Broaden Your Child's Social Circle
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Expose Racial Stereotyping in Entertainment
The Young Teen Years
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Select a Diverse Middle School
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Listen To and Discuss Your Teen's Concerns
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Don't Use Racism as a Crutch
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If Trouble's Brewing, Sound the Horn
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Learn Compassion for All Colors
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Encourage Community Service
The High School Years
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Be Honest: Talk About Uncertainties
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Beware of Your Nonverbal Messages
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Speak Clearly and from the Heart
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Challenge Self-Segregation
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Face Your Teen's Prejudice
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Don't Give Up. Keep the Faith
Some Excerpts from the 40 Points presented in the Book:
#2 Why White Parents Should Care
"Before we can serve as models for our children, whites need to examine why we have such a hard time sustaining our interest and motivation to end racism. Where does our apathy come from?"
#23 Rule Out Discriminatory Remarks
"Rather than criticize, parents tend to ignore a child who resorts to such insults. They act as if the behavior will cease if no attention is called to it. Instead, they are essentially granting their children permission to behave in discriminatory ways.
Some parents try to excuse their children's behavior, claiming they didn't mean to be offensive or that they didn't grasp the gravity of their words. If children don't understand these things, it's because parents haven't made them clear."
Other parents downplay the importance of their child's discriminatory words or actions -- especially if there is no immediate or obvious reaction on the part of the person who was targeted. ("See, no harm was done!")
Tell your child early and often that there is no excuse for racist remarks or discriminatory behavior. "Don't ignore them; don't excuse them; don't try to rationalize them away. They are simply wrong."
#36 Beware of Your Nonverbal Messages
"Our lack of discourse is dividing the races," says a parent, "and that silence is on both sides." Whites say that they consider the silence or "sullen look" that blacks often direct toward them to be deep-seated anger or bitterness that can't be penetrated; on the other hand, blacks describe a silent nervousness and lack of eye contact on the part of whites as fear -- and racism. A black father angrily explains: "If I'm walking down the street, the white guy crosses to the other side. When someone sees me in the parking lot, they lock their car door. And when I'm talking to a white clerk in a store, she talks over my head to someone else."
#37 Speak Clearly and from the Heart
"May I tell you something?" the black teenage boy asked Barbara after she met with his class. "My parents told me there was one human race divided into ethnic groups, and they were put on this world all made in the same image, and that we all go through the same pain." ... This teen said he uses his parents' advice to form his own philosophy for survival: "We separate ourselves from others who are actually very much like ourselves. That's why I don't even use the term race anymore."
#39 Face Your Teen's Prejudice
When you hear racist language, say so. A mother who raised her son in the inner city of Atlanta tells him, "It offends me when you use the word 'nigger'." He retorts, "It's no big deal; it's like saying 'hell.'" "No, it's not," she insists. "It's like saying 'nigger,' and it's not right or allowed."
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