Equity Corner : How to talk to kids about racialized violence

This week's post is directly from Embracerace.org, a website with some great resources. 

Tyre Nichols was a father, a son, a friend, a co-worker. He enjoyed skateboarding and made it a point to watch and photograph sunsets. He loved and was loved. Now he is known as yet another unarmed Black man murdered by the police. 
 
How do we talk to kids of all ages about Tyre Nichols' death, about why this has happened again? And again? And again? Haven't we already had this conversation too many times before? One thing that we hear tripping up a lot of people: in this case, the officers who brutalized Tyre were Black men like him. How do we make sense of that? 

For us, if there's sense to be made here, it begins with the fact that people of color are by no means immune from the predatory dynamics of structural and systemic racism that makes us have to insist that Black Lives Matter. That Brown Lives Matter. That Native Lives Matter. And Black police officers - police officers of color - are obviously not exempt from the culture of policing that often bullies and antagonizes communities of color and poor people, rather than "serving and protecting" us. (For more on systemic racism in policing read here and here.)

We’ve included links to some of the conversations we've had about navigating these moments with kids and to resources to guide you below.

Webinars

• Addressing Racial Injustice with Young Children

•  “I [STILL] can’t breathe”: Supporting kids of color amid racialized violence

• Managing racial stress and teaching kids to do the same

• Moving 'The Talk' to 'The Walk' for Black Children

Action Guides

• How to talk to kids after incidents of mass violence

• 8 Tips for Talking to Your Child About Racial Injustice