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This is But Why, a broadcast for curious kids. I'm Jane Lindholm. For eight weeks this spring, we're bringing our podcast to the airwaves for live radio shows in collaboration with Vermont's Agency of Education. Now, many of you are out of school by now, but we're hoping you're still enjoying having a radio program that is designed just for you, not for the adults. Today, we're going to tackle a topic that's been in the news a lot lately and might be something that your family is talking about more than in the past.
We're going to talk about racism and skin color. We're going to learn about the movement and the phrase Black Lives Matter. And we're going to talk about protests and why some people want to change the way police departments and officers work in the United States.
Now, as I said, some of you may be learning about these things for the first time. But for lots of you listening, conversations about race and racism are things you've discussed in your family a lot. Maybe some of you have experiences you'd like to share about how you experience race and racism or want to talk about the ways that you try to make sure everyone has a fair chance at a good, safe and happy life.
So please add your voice to this conversation. We've been getting lots of questions in advance of the show, questions that you have about protests and racism and what racism is. Some really interesting things to go over and discuss here. And if you haven't had a chance to send us a question, grab your adult and give us a call. You can also just send an email to questions at butwhykids.org.
And we're joined today by two authors who think a lot about how to discuss all kinds of differences, including the way we're all different in our skin colors and our family histories. They have a new book that's actually coming out today. It's called The ABCs of Diversity, Helping Kids and Ourselves Embrace Our Differences. Their names are Joy Harris-Smith and Carolyn Halsill. Thank you both for joining us for this important conversation today.
Thanks for having me. Thank you for having us. Yeah, we're really excited to talk with you and really excited to get to the questions that lots of children have been asking us today. But let's start with a question that we got from Tilda, who's three and lives in Wisconsin, because today is a holiday. And so we should talk about what this holiday is. It's called Juneteenth. And Tilda says, what is Juneteenth?
Why is Juneteenth important? Joy, could you start us off by talking a little bit about this day, Juneteenth? Sure. Juneteenth, until probably just this year, in the midst of all that was going on, was sort of an unofficial holiday throughout the U.S.,
celebrating the liberation of slaves. In particular, as you started to mention earlier, it was the last sort of the people who were in Texas, I believe it was Galveston, Texas, who were finally let go. They were informed that they were free.
Yeah. So they were informed that they were free, these slaves in Galveston, Texas, and the people who considered themselves slave owners. This was two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation, which was supposed to free the slaves. And it was even after the end of the Civil War. But
For kids living today, it may be hard to imagine that there was a time when you couldn't get information at the moment it was happening. In fact, in a lot of cases, as we now know, you couldn't even get information within days or weeks. There was no email. There was no internet. There was no TV. Right, right, right.
And why is it important and why do you think today in 2020 people are noting Juneteenth perhaps more than they have been in the past or perhaps especially for families who didn't celebrate Juneteenth in the past that this is something that more Americans are noting?
I think it's becoming something because, well, you know, it's right before July 4th, right? And so we celebrate this liberty of our country and our freedom, but yet still we have this group of people who have been here since the country's inception and who have yet to really experience that freedom. And so I think the idea is to try to remind both the country and ourselves that we
African Americans, people who are descendants of the African diaspora in this country are free, have been made free, and that is also just as important as celebrating our country, July 4th, and what that stands for.
All right. Well, let's get to more questions about race and racism. And we're going to as well talk about some current events. We're going to talk about protests. We have questions about why are there protests happening around the world that seem spurred on by something that happened in the United States? What are people protesting? And we're going to talk more deeply about questions of race and racism and what it means to be anti-racist. But let's start with a question from Ananda.
I'm five years old and I'm from El Salvador and I live in Vermont and my question is what is racism? So Ananda says what is racism? We got this question as well from Tilda who we heard from before who's three and lives in Wisconsin and will in Wisconsin. And here's how Elliot frames the same question.
I'm six years old and I'm calling in from Portland, Maine. And my question is, what's the difference from race and racism? Carolyn, could you start us off by talking about what racism is and what's the difference between race and racism?
Great question. Racism is the idea that one race is superior to another. And the idea of race is that people, because of different skin colors are actually part of different groups. Now,
Now, this idea is pretty new in the history of humanity. We've only had this idea of race as having different groups of people for a few hundred years. And we're realizing that over time, this idea changes, but that we're actually only one human race. But because of people wanting to make, make,
good reasons for why they were having some people as slaves, they made up this idea of race to say, oh, it's okay for us to enslave persons who are from Africa because of the color of their skin. So it's an unfair concept to begin with. But the idea of racism is that
The categories that we still put people in still matter and people still have ideas about whole groups of people just because of the way they look, just because of the color of their skin.
Let me slow down and ask you to clarify that again, Carolyn, because this is something that is a new concept to some adults in addition to some kids because you hear about race. You can see that people have different color skin and different ways that they look. And you're saying race is kind of a made-up concept. What do you mean by that?
Yeah, well, all of us have different color of skin. There's something called melanin that makes our skin color different. But if you were to look deep down at the DNA of each of our bodies, each of the tiny cells that make up who we are, you can see that we're all a lot more similar than we are different. And scientists over 100 years ago were trying to make the argument that
that people who have different skin color are different races. And they tried looking at people's head sizes and hair color and noses and all sorts of things to try to, again, make this concept of race make sense. But in actuality, nobody can really do that. There's really no difference between people who have different color skin. We're all the same underneath. It's just the way that we look that is different.
We have some other questions coming in that are similar. So let's go to our callers. Ethan is calling in from Burnaby, British Columbia. Hi, Ethan. Hi. What's your question? Why are there both black people and white people? And when you say why are there both, what do you mean by that? Why do some people have darker skin and some people have lighter skin? What are you trying to get at, Ethan?
Yeah. Why do some people have darker skin and lighter skin? Good question. And I'm going to pair your question with one from Nicolina, who's calling in from Ocean City, New Jersey. Hi, Nicolina. You're on the radio. Hi. What's your question? My question is, how did we come to have different races?
And the world. Thanks for that question, Nicolina. Okay, so Joy, Nicolina and Ethan are both asking about this question then of, you know, why do people have different skin colors? And Carolyn was talking a little bit about how we have this idea that people are different races based on their skin colors and sometimes on family background. But how did this come to be and why? Can you talk a little bit about that?
Sure. So some people believe, it depends on your sort of belief in terms of religion, but then it also looks at sort of the history of our world and sort of where people believe civilization began.
And then just like we have different cultures and different languages, depending on where you live, the weather is different. And as my co-author Carolyn had started to mention, there's melody. Where you live affects us all differently. So where you live in the world, how much
sunlight, all of those things impact how we all look on the outside, where people who tend to live in northern places tend to be lighter in complexion, and as you go closer to the equator and past the equator, sometimes people tend to get darker. So in part, it
And it has to do with sort of just where you live in the world in addition to the melanin that Carolyn mentioned earlier. Yeah. Tell us a little bit more about melanin, Joy.
So melanin has to do with, again, I don't want to say it's a hormone, but it's a pigment. It happens, a dark brown pigment that occurs in the hair and the
skin and even in the iris of people's eyes. That's why some people have very dark brown eyes as opposed to light blue eyes or green eyes or hazel eyes. And it's based off the exposure to the sunlight. So depending on how much exposure
exposure you have to the sunlight will impact sort of your body's reaction to the melanin. So that's why sometimes when it's summertime, you're supposed to wear sunblock to kind of protect you a little bit from the sun. And so the melanin does a little bit of that as well. But it's the exposure to the sun and the melanin in people's bodies that produces the color.
So everybody, every human has melanin. It's just some of us produce more melanin than others, and that has an impact on not just what our skin color looks like, but as you said, Joy, our hair and our eyes and other things in our body that can look different from one person to the next. Absolutely.
And even within a family can look different. You might look different from your brother or sister. Your skin color might not be exactly the same. You might have hair that looks different, has a different texture or a different color, and your eyes may be different. Absolutely. My children are both lighter in complexion than I am, noticeably lighter, to the point where people used to wonder whether or not I was their mom. Absolutely.
So let's talk a little bit about something that some children may be hearing about in the news. And, you know, maybe this is something that you're talking about with your parents and your family and your teachers, but maybe not. So let's talk about this. So we got a note from Dom. Dom says, I'm 11 years old and I'm black. I live in Eureka, California. So Dom asked two questions, and I'm going to ask Dom's second question first. So Dom wants to know about George Floyd. Sure.
George Floyd, he says, was George Floyd a random black guy who died by police? Or was there a reason that police would want to kill him? And Magnus, who lives in Wisconsin, and another child named Robbie also really want to understand why George Floyd was killed by a police officer. Magnus says, I thought police officers were supposed to help people, not hurt people. So let's talk about this because this is...
Something that's really difficult for a lot of people to talk about and think about. And Joy, I can hear you responding to these questions. It sounds like it's hard for you to think about how children are feeling thinking about this news, too.
Yeah, they're asking really powerful questions. And just to hear, you know, I read through some of them, but just to hear you give them voice now and having heard some of the children's voices, it's amazing because they're listening.
You know, people think it's just the adults that are paying attention. No, the children are listening and they're paying attention and this is evidence of that. And we have to answer to that. We have to answer to them. Mm-hmm. So,
So what can you say by way of explanation? Because there are a couple of different kinds of explanation when we talk about George Floyd. So one of the things is just to talk about what actually happened to George Floyd. And then the point of the show today, and I think what a lot of people are questioning and a lot of children are trying to wrestle with, is how does the death of one person affect
How is a history of racism or a country that doesn't always treat people the same based on their skin tone, how does this situation fit into that historical context? But for people who haven't been following Not All Kids Know About George Floyd, without getting too deep into the details, Joy, can you just tell us what happened?
Sure. If I have most of the facts correct, one, George Floyd was in a store purchasing something and using money that the clerk believed to be counterfeit, and he called the police. And counterfeit means fake money. It wasn't made by the government. Right, fake money. And
So the cops arrived, and there were about four of them.
It was said in one instance that there was some kind of tussle, but it's sort of been back and forth. But the end result was that one of the officers leaned on or had his knee on George Floyd's neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds. And as a result, he died.
Yeah. So that's what happened to George Floyd. And one of the other things we're going to talk about in this program is a lot of protests. There have been a lot of people going out to try to get their voices heard, to talk about racism and to talk about the ways that police often treat people who have darker skin, people based on their skin color.
And so George Floyd was really one of the people who spurred this current movement on because people heard about what Joy is talking about. And it felt so wrong not only to hear about this, but there was a video. And so people have been able to see this. And it really angers people. It makes people incredibly sad because, of course, when –
one person dies, that is so sad and so awful for that person's family and for everybody who loved him, but also to think about the ways that this is part of a bigger system. And so we're going to talk about that too. And so we need to get into this question of
of racism. So we're going to do that in a moment. And if you have questions that you want to share with us that you're grappling with, if you and your family are talking about things and you still think, I need another perspective, give us a call. Or you can send an email to questions at butwhykids.org. We'll be right back.
This is But Why, a broadcast for curious kids. I'm Jane Lindholm. Today we're talking about race and racism. While these issues are always important to discuss, we're having this conversation today because we know that many young people have questions about the things you're hearing in the news and the protests you may be seeing or even joining in your towns and cities.
Some of you have experienced racism directed at you, and we're listening to your questions and experiences alongside questions from kids who have not experienced these things. Our guests today are Joy Harris-Smith and Carolyn Halsall, authors of the book The ABCs of Diversity, Helping Kids and Ourselves Embrace Our Differences.
Their book is for adults, I think, but Joy and Carolyn are both parents. And I think I hear a kid in the background, too. And they love to talk to young kids about these issues. We like hearing kids. That's the whole point.
So, kids, if you have a question, you can give us a call or you can send an email to questions at but why kids dot org. So we're talking a little bit about a man named George Floyd who died recently after having a police officer had put his knee on George Floyd's neck and George Floyd couldn't breathe and he died.
And so lots of people have been talking about this and asking questions and thinking about how this man's death fits into a larger picture in the United States about how we treat people based on their skin color and background.
So Joy was talking about this before the break. And Carolyn, maybe we can double back on Dom's question about the police. Why would the police want to kill someone like George Floyd and Magnus who said, I thought police officers were supposed to help people? And Savannah who says, why are the police being so harsh? Can you help us understand how policing fits into a conversation that we're having about race?
Yes, there are a lot of really great police officers out there who are doing their best to keep us safe. Um, but as part of the conversation that we're having across the country now, um, we're becoming aware that a lot of police officers, instead of helping people with darker skin, actually see them as people who are criminals instead of keeping them safe and they make them, uh,
They treat them with suspicion, which means that sometimes they can hurt them in ways that are not fair because they already assume things about persons just because of the color of their skin. So we're trying to see how we can help police officers be better at their jobs. But some people are saying, you know, police officers actually started back at the end of slavery when white people wanted to try to...
re-enslave people who had been freed. And one of the ways that they did that was make it illegal for black people just to hang around. Like if black people didn't have a job, they could send people to arrest them and say, you're loitering, which is just hanging out, which meant that people could be put in jail for doing nothing. And then when they were in jail, they could continue to pick cotton, um,
for the jails, uh, and for the white people who owned those, those, uh, those cotton fields. So the whole system of policing started when, uh, when, when slavery was ending. And so we're also having conversations about what does it mean as a, as a country to have, uh,
police force that continues this long history of putting people with darker skin in prison when they haven't done the things that people say that they're doing. So we're having a lot of really hard conversations and I'm so glad kids are asking these hard questions because we as grownups don't know all the answers, but we're trying to figure these things out ourselves too.
Well, so here are some questions that we've gotten about how and why racism started. My name is Max. I'm six years old, and I'm from Nottingham, New Hampshire. How did racism start? Hi, my name is Emma. I'm five years old. I live in North Raleigh, Carolina. Why did racism start?
Hi, my name is Poe. I'm nine years old and I live in Underhill, Vermont. My question today is, where and when did racism start? Hi, but why? This is Rosa from Plattsburgh, New York, and I want to know how did skinned people start getting treated badly?
We also got similar questions from Anora, who's seven and lives in Pulteney, Vermont, and says, when did black people start being treated badly in the United States? And Ada in California, who asks, too, why did racism start? So Joy and Carolyn, maybe both of you can tackle this question. But Joy, why don't we start with you?
Can you just say it one more time? I was listening to like all the questions. Yeah, I mean, I think that the thing that all of these young people are wondering is when and how and why did racism start? And we've talked a little bit about this. We've a bit about it. Yeah, about slavery. But just, you know, I think this is a question that really bothers a lot of people. And if you're young, especially before you've studied a lot of history, it might seem baffling. So, yeah. How and why? Yeah. Why and why?
Well, I believe that, if I'm not mistaken, it started sort of in a period of history known as the Enlightenment period.
And this is when I think Carolyn began to mention and talk about how people wanted to justify the differences between cultures and the differences they found. Because as you know, they didn't have technology the way that we do today. And so, you know, when people would get in a boat and go somewhere or visit, they would encounter different people and they didn't know that these people existed.
And so they began to just, you know, as they started to, you know, conquer and there were wars and different things, they started to try to justify and find reasons for the differences between the groups of people that they came in contact with. Yeah. So, Carolyn, to follow up on that, too, you know, we're thinking about this question of racism. And, you know, I'll also say that
questions about people's skin color and how they look are not just about whether you consider yourself black or you consider yourself white. There are lots of different skin colors, lots of different backgrounds that people have. And so it's not necessarily just a question of black and white, but that is one that a lot of
people are focusing on right now because of the history in this country around Black people and around the evolution of slavery in the United States. But what about this idea of when and how and why racism started? I'd like to think about it in ways that kids can understand. If they would imagine if they have another sibling, like a brother or a sister,
Imagine if you could tell your brother or sister what to do and they would have to do it no matter what. They would follow your commands. They would bring you things. They would do your chores for you. They would pick up your room. They would bring you a sandwich when you wanted. If you had the power to do that and you could,
how would that feel? It might feel kind of good. It might feel kind of exciting at first. You might like it. But then after a while, I imagine you might feel a little bit bad about it. You might have some feelings that, well, this isn't fair that I'm making my brother do all of these things. But because you're so used to your brother doing everything, that feeling of badness is
you don't act on. Instead, you take that feeling of badness and you put it on your brother. You try to make an excuse for yourself that say, you know, my brother is actually bad and that's why he has to do all of my chores. My brother is actually, you know, he's not smart. And so I'm the one that really has to tell him what to do. So I
so one way to think about how racism starts is to think about how we feel about ourselves and how we feel about other people. And when we do bad things, sometimes we don't like to feel bad about ourselves. So instead we put those bad feelings onto others and we think badly about other people, uh, in order to make ourselves feel good again. So after slavery, uh, as, and during slavery, uh,
as white people, um, enslaved black persons, instead of feeling bad about that, uh, that unfair, uh, situation, white people thought black people weren't smart and they, they couldn't, uh, do things on their own. Um, but they also intentionally made it so that it was harder for black people to get an education or to, uh,
to do things that helped them to feel good about themselves. So there's a lot of laws that were passed to make it so that black people weren't allowed to read or to write or to get together with other people. And then later on after slavery, there were laws that made it so that black people couldn't live in white neighborhoods, that made it so that black people had to live only in certain neighborhoods.
and because those neighborhoods didn't have a lot of money, the schools weren't very good. And so again, instead of white people feeling bad about the situation of, oh, it's not fair for our white kids to have good schools and those black kids to have bad schools, white people just blamed it on black people and said, you know, black people just aren't very smart. And that's why those schools aren't very good. So you see, it's really complicated, but it
A lot of it has to do with how we feel about ourselves and the ways that we take out our feelings of feeling bad and put that onto other people and let that be an excuse for really, really unfair situations. Here's a question that we got from Sophia. I'm eight years old and I live in Chicago, Illinois. My question is, does racism exist all around the world?
So, Carolyn, you were talking about this idea of treating people differently and treating people badly. And Sophia wants to know, does this happen all over or is this just a U.S. problem? Unfortunately, it is a problem all over the world. And people who are lighter in skin color often are given better treatments in other countries compared to people with darker skin color. And again, it's not very fair and appropriate.
That's why a lot of the people around the world are protesting after seeing what happened to George Floyd, because it's not just something that happens in the US, but it happens all over the world. And people with darker skin are saying, we are tired of this and we don't want you to treat us badly. And so people are standing up and saying, this is wrong. And then there's a lot of people with lighter skin who are seeing that and realizing, yes, this is wrong. So both people with light skin and darker skin
are trying to work together to make the world a better place. Let's just listen to some of the questions that we've been getting from kids here as we head into a break, starting with this one from Natan. And I am four and a half and I'm pulling from Seattle.
my question is, why do white people think racism is okay? Yeah, Natan wondering why do white people think racism is okay. Here's another way a lot of you have been phrasing these questions. Hi, my name is Iris and I live in Salem, Massachusetts. I'm eight years old. Why are people racist? Hi, my name is Larkin and I live in Pacific Grove, California. I'm
And I'm seven years old. Why are people of color not as treated well as white people? My name is Lily, and I'm from Medford, Massachusetts, and I'm eight. Why are people with darker color skin treated badly? I am Nixon. I am six years old. I am from Nashville, Tennessee, and my question is...
Why are black people treated differently than white people? Faye, who's seven and lives in Alameda, California, says, why do some white people think that black people are not as good as them? Lily is eight. Lily lives in Medford, Massachusetts, and wonders, why are people with darker colored skin treated badly and why people with lighter colored hair treated fairly? And here's Maxx.
I'm nine years old from near Boston. My question is, why is there so much racism? Yeah, lots of kids with so many questions here wondering about what is racism, why is there racism, and what do they do about it? And let's listen to this question next from Jaden. I'm eight years old. My question is, what is white privilege? Joy, what is white privilege?
Wow. It is the ability to, or freedom to be able to kind of move in and throughout society without having to think about or wonder about if you are going to be treated differently because of the color of your skin. It's not having to give it a thought. It's
You go into the store to buy some candy and you don't have to worry about whether or not someone thinks that you're going to take it without paying for it. So it's the freedom to move throughout society without ever wondering whether you'll be treated fairly. Yeah.
You know, Joy, a lot of adults have been grappling with this concept. A lot of adults who say, my life is very hard. You know, I live below the poverty line. I don't have enough money to feed my family. Or I have had really bad things happen in my life. And when you say, I have privilege...
that I have maybe a better head start, that doesn't feel right to my life. So can you explain that? It's not necessarily that your life is easy. It's just that your skin color isn't one of the things that is likely to make your life harder, right? Absolutely. So, you know, to go back even to that example, you know, the person who says, who might be white and says, you know, yeah, I've had a lot of things happen to me.
I'm struggling to pay my bills. How do I have white privilege? Well, you have it because if you and I both walk into the store, more than likely people are going to follow me. They're not going to care whether or not you have the money, but they're going to question whether or not I do. Just because of the color of your skin. Just because of the color of my skin. Yeah. So that's one concept that I think is something that a lot of people are thinking about is
Let's go to Rory, who's calling in from Louisville, Kentucky. Hi, Rory. Nice to talk with you. Go ahead. Say hi. Hi. Hi. What's your question today? Why are there protests?
Rory, thanks for the question. So Carolyn, why are there protests? People may have been watching the news. They can see lots of pictures of protests. Lots of kids may be going to protests. It's also a difficult time to be protesting because we're all very worried about this virus, the coronavirus, COVID-19, and how to make sure that we are protesting safely if that's something that we're doing. But maybe you can talk a little bit, Carolyn, about why there are protests right now and what a protest is.
Well, a protest is when a lot of people get together out in the streets. And because they're out in the streets, there's a lot of people that can see them and can hear them. People might have posters that they carry and they march from one place to another. But all of these people who are protesting are saying something's not fair and we want to see change.
And protests have been a way that people have used their voices to say to people in power that this is not right. Right now, all the protests are going around the country and around the world because of George Floyd's death, but also because of racism and people being really tired of
of racism across the world. And so people are standing up, people who have darker skin as well as lighter skin, all coming together to say, this is not fair and we want to work for a different world. All right. You said the world. Well, here's what Sam is wondering, which is involving the whole world.
I am 10 years old and I live in Nottingham, New Hampshire. I understand why U.S. people are protesting, but why are people around the world protesting? Yeah, so Carolyn, if we've been talking about some of the specifics about racism and the way people are treated in the United States, you know, Sam's wondering why are people in other parts of the world protesting right now?
Because everybody around the world who experiences racism is really mad that it's still happening. And seeing the voices of people rise up in protests here has also encouraged other people around the world to stand up and say,
we want to see change in our country too, because everybody wants to be treated fairly. Nobody wants to be treated worse because of the color of their skin. And so people everywhere around the world who experience racism are saying, we've had enough. We want this to stop. We want everybody to be treated fairly.
We got a question from Gabe in Virginia. One of Gabe's parents sent us a note along with the question and writes, my son and daughter listen to your show every day on our drive to school. As a black mother, I'm really happy that you're doing an episode on racism. We live in Richmond and the governor just announced the Robert E. Lee monument was coming down. This raised a lot of questions for my kids. So here's how Gabe asks the question.
I'm six years old, and my question is, why are there Confederate monuments? So, Joy, this Robert E. Lee monument has to do with the Civil War. We've been talking about Juneteenth earlier and the end of slavery. And Robert E. Lee was the president of the Confederacy. And, you know, Gabe's question is a good one. Why is there a monument to somebody like Robert E. Lee?
Well, I guess at the time, you know, he was heralded as an American, as someone who stood for the beliefs that a lot of people had. And so they wanted to honor him. And I guess over the years, no one ever questioned or thought about as they, as we go.
you know, looked at what our country stands for, or we say what our country stands for, questioned why there was this statue of a person who in some ways didn't really believe that all people were, you know, created equal. He wanted to, you know, keep, you know,
slaves and slavery and he fought to keep it but no one ever questioned it and I think that some people at the time believed that he was a great American and perhaps in some ways he was but at the same time as time has gone on no one has ever questioned why that statue still remained Let's go to Judd who's on the line with us from Asheville, North Carolina Hi Judd
Hi. What's your question, Jen? My question is why are some police not supporting protests? Yeah. Joy, do you want to tackle that? Okay.
Well, the police are known to be, you know, a brotherhood. And so I think some people, there are police who are joining, right? They support the protesters. They support the right to protest. But then there are others who probably feel uncomfortable and don't want to be seen as not standing up or being in conflict.
connection with those people, with the other police officers who are on, you know, who are dealing with the ramifications of their acts, their actions or dealing with the consequences of their actions.
Carolyn, it's really hard, you know, if you if somebody tells you that you're doing something wrong, even if you can see that what you're doing is wrong or is mean, it doesn't feel good to be told that you're doing something wrong. And sometimes I think that when we think about this situation with police officers, there's a maybe a system they let they exist in our society.
Our U.S. system, which we've talked about, has historically favored people with lighter skin rather than darker skin. So it's hard to figure out maybe how to say, yes, I haven't been doing the right thing. And so as Joy said, some police officers are supporting protesters and are calling for changes, but some aren't. And it's difficult to try to figure out maybe how to move forward and
how do you advise people who are feeling uncomfortable with this conversation to move forward? I encourage people to think about why they're feeling uncomfortable and to acknowledge that it is really hard to feel like you've made a mistake or you've been wrong about something. But one of the amazing things about humans is that we can change and we can grow and we can do things differently. Um,
One of the reasons why slavery was able to be abolished and ended was because people of all skin colors realized that slavery was wrong and they worked against it. And so even today, people who have maybe not been talking about racism before or didn't realize that it was still a problem, even today, they can still change and they can make a difference.
And so I want to encourage people who do feel uncomfortable to trust that it's a long process, that we can't get rid of racism overnight, but that if they feel uncomfortable, that they can keep having conversations and keep talking about it and keep learning from one another. Because the more we know about each other and the more we share our stories, the more we get excited about being part of one large human family around the world.
Let's go to Beckett. Beckett has been waiting for a long time on the line from Winter Haven, Florida. Hi, Beckett. What are you questioning today? What do you want to talk about? Um...
Why do our people still mean to blacks even though Abraham Lincoln ended slavery so long ago? Beckett, thank you for waiting on the phone line for your question. This is, I think, one that a lot of young people and maybe some adult people wonder too. If we know all of this, if we're having this conversation, why are people still mean to people based on their skin color?
Joy or Carolyn, which one of you would like to talk about this? Go for it, Carolyn. Well, I think we continue to hear messages. We continue to hear stories that make us think ideas about people. And when you grow up surrounded by people who say bad things about black people, then maybe you start to believe those things too. So a lot of people grow up thinking,
in places where they only hear bad things about black people. And if that's the only thing you've ever heard, then you're going to think bad things about black people too. So it's really important as, as you go to school and as you're in your, in your communities. And if you go and play sports, um,
that you listen to what people say about black people. And if you hear people saying mean things that you start to question that and say, that's, that's not very nice what you just said about that person. And you also, if you think about the things that you learn about in school, um,
Who are the heroes that you get to read about? Are you reading about people who are only light skinned or do you also get to read about heroes who have black skin? Because the stories that we tell, the stories that we read, the books we read, they can also help us all change the way that we think about one another. Because if we've only heard bad stories, then we often just make those same bad assumptions. Okay.
Let's keep talking about ways that we can take action and make changes. And we have some questions about that. So Sophia is calling in from Pasadena, California. Hi, Sophia. Hi. What's your question? My question is, how can kids stop racism? Yeah. So Sophia, you're asking how can kids stop racism. Nahara in Beckett, Massachusetts, you're asking a similar question, right? What's your question, Nahara?
How can we help stop racism? Great questions. Joy and Carolyn, this is a good way for us to wrap up the hour to talk about what we can do and what we can do as kids, you know, even if we can't drive, even if we can't vote, even if we don't have all the power in the world. What can young people do right now to stop and end racism? Joy? Oh, yeah.
So I think one of the things that kids can do is to stand up for fairness. Most of you know or have a good sense of what is fair, what's right.
And, you know, it just may involve beginning to stand up or say something when you see something that might not be going, that might not be right. And then also extending yourself to be a friend to some people who might seem lonely, regardless of what race or ethnicity or religion they might be from. If they seem to be alone at school, introduce yourself and try to be a friend.
that may help other people realize that it's okay to have friends who are different from you. And that extends to all kinds of differences? Yes, that extends to all kinds of differences. Carolyn, what would you say?
I'd also say that even though kids feel like they're young, I want you also to know that you can make a big difference. A lot of the protests around the country were led by people that aren't much older than you. We had teenagers and people that are in their early 20s and late teens who were the people who organized some of these major peaceful protests.
across the country. So kids just like you who are a little bit older are able to make these kinds of differences and encourage, maybe talk to your parents about writing to your politicians because racism isn't just about how we treat each other
But it's also about the laws and the ways that our government treats people differently. So do what you can to help your parents also be politically active in working for a more just society. Joy, do kids who consider themselves white have a different role in ending racism or more of a role maybe than they think they've played in the past than kids who are darker skinned?
I think that everyone still has a role to play. I think that children who are white or come from that background need to recognize the ways in which they have privilege. And so that's a great discussion to ask your parents or even an adult that you feel comfortable with talking to more to help you explain what white privilege is.
That's Joy Harris-Smith and Carolyn Halsall. They're the authors of the new book just coming out, The ABCs of Diversity, Helping Kids and Ourselves Embrace Our Differences. Joy and Carolyn, thank you very much for having this conversation with us. Thank you for having us. And if you want more resources, we have them from Vermont's Agency of Education. You'll find them at butwhykids.org. From PR.