[mcv]

That is exactly why it's important for kids to learn about that divide, and to break through it. To understand the experience of other people, to recognise the injustice of it, and to do something to change that.

The division is caused by treating with different skin colour or ethnic background as lesser, or as criminals. Pretending it doesn't exist doesn't make it go away. It's real, and it needs to be addressed. Making kids more aware of that is absolutely important.

[burfog]

Human minds don't work that way. They learn, but not always what you intend for them to learn.

If the kid is white, possible learning outcomes include:

a. self-hate, leading to depression and self-harm

b. reading between the lines, learning that to be normal he must be racist against black people, because that is just how white people are

c. rage at being disfavored by every diversity initiative, leading to a desire for revenge

If the kid is black, possible learning outcomes include:

a. hatred toward white people due to being told that white people are to blame for all the bad in life

b. giving up on life because the world seems so racist that life is hopeless

c. deciding that if most people believe he is prone to crime, it is probably true or he might as well make it true

Most of the above will be recognized by both sides as "othering" that is enough to prevent friendship. That's what is being taught, even if not intended.

[mcv]

I think you've got this exactly backwards. We have already seen what not teaching people about this leads to: a continuation of the racism. Kids get taught racism, consciously and unconsciously, intentionally and unintentionally. By default, we tend to reinforce the patterns we see. We need more awareness of the old patterns in order to change them.

Of course you shouldn't teach them self-hate, depression and that sort of thing, but you can teach black and white kids to unite against those old patterns that have kept them separate, to have them work together, to teach them they are equals.

I keep seeing too many excuses not to tackle racism, but that means it will continue to exist and hold new generations back.

You don't solve problems by ignoring them. Of course you should also not solve them by making them worse. So you should absolutely look critically at the way in which kids are taught about this, but it's important to make kids aware that this is something that has held previous generations back, and they shouldn't be held back the same way. Sheltering kids from history is not going to make them learn from it, and as we know, people who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

[burfog]

That just isn't how humans learn. You think you are teaching to not hate, but they learn that hate is normal. They want to be normal. You teach that diversity is important, but they learn that they are the undesirables or that they don't have to try in life. Just focusing on the differences puts them on different teams, and thus in opposition. It won't be otherwise.

We have seen what teaching people about this leads to, because we've been doing it for decades, and the result is not a lack of racism. You don't solve racial division with racial division.

Most of these efforts do shelter kids from history. Kids learn a false narrative that slavery was just evil white southerners enslaving black people. Nothing is said of the fact that the first slaveowner in the pre-USA colonies was a black person named Anthony Johnson, or that free blacks in the USA often owned slaves, or that black slaves were purchased from black people in Africa, or that the very term "slave" comes from the white Slavic people, or that black Africans are still being sold today, or that enslavement (generally, and particularly of black people) is endorsed by a major world religion.

[mcv]

Teaching not to hate is hard to do. Instead, teach everybody is different, and that that is normal. Teach them that people have different looks, different backgrounds, different religions, different believes and personal convictions, and that that is normal. Expose kids to those differences, so they won't see different people as Other.

Don't make it an us-vs-them thing, but unite them. Let them embrace those differences.

[burfog]

Differences will be ranked, and they will be used to form teams.

You can't stop human nature. At best, you can divert it to something less problematic, like nationalism. If everybody is on Team USA, then there is no room for racism.

We will never eliminate the urge to judge, rank, and exclude. It's very deeply in our DNA. All the social mammals have the urge.

[actfrench]

Beautifully put!