Mission Yearbook: Talking to kids about racism, injustice and the power of love

On April 28, in Rochester, Minnesota, a white woman named Shiloh Hendrix accused a 5-year-old Black boy of stealing something from her diaper bag. She shouted racial slurs at him, calling him the N-word. He also happens to be a child with autism. In defense of him, a man named Sharmake Omar took out his phone, pressed record and confronted the woman. The woman responded by shouting racial slurs at him.

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Nicole Doyley

Omar’s video went viral, and because Hendrix allegedly received death threats, someone set up a GiveSendGo campaign. To date, thousands of people from all over the country have donated more than $700,000 to Hendrix. So many donors used racial slurs and Nazi jargon in the comments of the campaign that it overwhelmed the profanity filter.

This story is disturbing on many levels, not the least of which is the fact that it is as old as the United States itself: white women accusing Black boys of nefarious deeds, which brings racism bubbling to the surface and sometimes results in threats of violence or actual violence (think Emmett Till).

The question is, how can parents help their kids make sense of such a confusing moral landscape, where racism is flaunted and bad behavior is rewarded?

Here are four suggestions to help you to talk to kids about disturbing stories such as this one:

• When they hear stories like the Rochester incident, start with the big picture. The Bible tells us that there are six things the Lord hates and one of them is “feet that run swiftly to evil” (Proverbs 6:18). God doesn’t want us to do evil and doesn’t want us to run to see it, either. Help your kids think about excellent and praiseworthy things by pointing out a beautiful sky, the kindness of a stranger or the beautiful music on the radio.
• This doesn’t mean that you should ignore realities like racism, though. Rather, teach your kids about race and racism even when they’re young. You can say things like, “Recently a lady was mean to a little boy because of the color of his skin. That was very wrong, and it made God very sad.” Whether your kids are white or kids of color, tell them that all people are created in God’s image, and those with dark skin bear God’s image just as much as those with light skin.
• Teach your kids that the root of racism is hate. Jesus teaches us that the second greatest command (after loving God) is loving neighbor, and our neighbor includes people of every race and ethnicity. You cannot love God and hate people.
• Teach them that part of living in a sinful world means that sometimes right and wrong get mixed up.  Sometimes sinful people will call bad behavior, like the behavior of Shiloh Hendrix, good, and they will even reward it rather than rewarding the brave action of a stranger trying to defend a child. Kids find it confusing when adults do this because they feel adults should know better. But the truth is, adults who are filled with hate do not know better. All we can do for them is pray that their lives will be transformed by God’s love.

There are many sad things about this story, including the fact that Hendrix shouted these slurs with her own young child on her hip.  Parents keep passing racism down to their kids. Perhaps tonight, with your kids, you can model love by praying for Shiloh Hendrix, that God’s transforming love will invade her life; for the little Black boy and his family, that God would heal them and that they would refuse to return evil for evil; and for Sharmake Omar, that God would protect him and draw him to God’s self.

In his sermon called “Loving Your Enemies,” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” Let’s teach that to our children.

Nicole Doyley is the author of “What about the Children?: Five Values for Multiracial Families,” published in February by Westminster John Knox Press. You can find her here.

Nicole Doyley, Special for Presbyterian News Service  (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Cameron Stevens,  Mission Associate II, Constituency Relations, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, Interim Unified Agency
Mindi Stivers, Financial Assistant, Presbyterian Women

Let us pray:

God of mercy, we are privileged to be called to join Christ in the world as we seek to do ministries of justice and kindness and bring glory to your name. Give us the courage to act boldly and let all that we do be conducted in a spirit of humility and love. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Multiracial families can enjoy life’s blessings while facing its challenges

Two factors converged to make Nicole Doyley’s recent appearance on “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” timely.

Her new book, “What About the Children? Five Values for Multiracial Families,” published by Westminster John Knox Press in collaboration with the PC(USA)'s Around the Table initiative, is now available.

And, with more specific questions being asked by the U.S. Census Bureau, the multiracial population demographic is the fastest growing among families.

Nicole Doyley (contributed photo)

“I wrote the book because it’s a huge demographic, and there aren’t a lot of resources out there,” Doyley told podcast hosts Simon Doong and the Rev. Lee Catoe. Doyley herself is the product of a Black father, now deceased, and a white mother. “The way your kids look — their color or other ethnic details — are not random; they are intentional. God intended them to look the way they do.”

The forebears on her father’s side were “of course, taken from Africa against their will. What they endured in the Middle Passage, on slave plantations and through Jim Crow, and the courage they had — they survived, or I wouldn’t be here. The courage they had despite all the hardship — Black people represent some of the most incredible minds on the planet.”

Doyley also pointed with pride to her mother’s heritage, including that her maternal grandfather was part of a labor union and “just what they went through during the Great Depression and World War II.” Doyley doesn’t “shy away from the white part of myself either,” but embraces both aspects of her heritage.

“I mentioned the Census finally catching up to the reality that mixed race is a thing and has been for a very long time. It’s very important,” she told the hosts. “To say to a kid, you have to choose one — which is to choose what they look most like — means denying that I have a white mom.” Mixed-race children “struggle with anxiety more than monoracial kids. … If they are not taught who they are, that can lead to a lot of confusion, anxiety — even depression.”

She quoted psychologist Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, who says that white supremacy and cultural racism “is like smog in the air. You breathe it in without even knowing it,” Doyley said.

Doyley said she’s found in most mixed-race families, “usually one person in the marriage dominates in the dissemination of culture. Often that’s the wife, even if she works foll-time and has a full-blown career.”

“When kids are mixed race, both people have to intentionally teach culture and cultural values — the music, the food, the folklore and language, perhaps. … If one of the parents is passive, that child could grow up lopsided. … The child could grow up with brown skin but be white culturally on the inside, not understanding or feeling comfortable around brown people — even though they themselves are brown, and that’s kind of tragic.”

Before Christmas, a white friend of Doyley whose sister had adopted two Black girls wanted to know what kind of gifts to buy the children. Doyley suggested Black dolls “and books about happy Black family life,” such as Crystal Swain-Bates’ “Big Hair, Don’t Care.”

“Your children are going to move through life different than you, and racism is still alive and well,” Doyley says to white parents adopting children of color. When such parents “take the colorblind approach, saying, ‘We’re not going to fixate on race and racism. We’re just going to love this child’ — that is fine for a time while the child is little.”

“But the time will come when that child will have a negative experience because of race — will experience racism or hear something ignorant or negative. If they weren’t taught to be proud of their Blackness or Asian-ness or whatever in the first place, the first realization will be a negative one: ‘Wait, I’m not white. I am Black or brown.’ Their first confrontation with their Blackness is in a negative context.”

“Your kids need to see you enjoying and interacting with people of color and they need to be around positive people of color, because they are people of color,” Doyley said. 

Previous editions of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” are available here.

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service, Interim Unified Agency (Click here to read original PNS story)

Let us join in prayer for:

• Melanie Komp, Operations Manager, Compliance Services, Presbyterian Foundation
• Luciano Kovacs, Coordinator, Middle East, Europe & Central Asia Office, Interim Unified Agency 

Let us pray:

God, you connect us to you and to each other in so many ways. Help us to inspire as we are inspired to challenge as we are challenged to nurture as we have been nurtured, and to live in order to make Christ known in all the world. Amen.