Anti-Racist Conversations For Parents and Caregivers
A couple of weeks ago we wrapped up our parent and caregiver month long on racism and allyship. The month long helped me to consider my responsibility not only as an individual, but also with my role at camp. I am so grateful to have learned from parents and caregivers, leaders in youth development, and from our facilitators, Nina Tucker and Crystal Williams. As a white woman in a leadership position I am constantly working on unpacking my unconscious bias. I enjoyed being surrounded by others who were critically thinking about the inherent racism that we hold and committing ourselves to be active accomplices in the fight for racial justice.
We are excited to share with you another participant's takeaways from the parent month long. Introducing Suzie Ko, HTSG and SG parent of two! Suzie, thank you for joining us for this dialogue and being so willing to share stories and experiences with us. From discussing choosing a school for your kids to attend, to sharing where you see racism come up in your kids' lives, I truly valued your perspective and participation. - Allison Klee, Camp Director
I was so kindly asked to contribute a blog post for Stomping Ground (AKA Best Camp Ever!). As I was trying to channel my thoughts on racism into this blog post, I realized that the last time I guest blogged was for my best friend in 2015. It was titled “Zords Combine” and I was pondering how my conversations with my kids in 2015 were about lunch counter sit-ins and Power Rangers (zords-combine! When they take all their different robot-things to make a powerful weapon!). That writing had a fair amount of cursing in it, which is often how I feel about racism. And in reviewing that little bit of writing, I noticed that I am wrestling with the same dang things, but it feels different now...
Our parents and caregivers met weekly to engage in anti-racist conversations
I just attended the series, “Anti-Racist Conversations for Parents and Caregivers” hosted by Stomping Ground. It was a weekly, month-long series devoted to anti-racist work. The work of how we present (and live) the ideals of our society with the kids/young people in our lives: fairness, equality, peace, freedom...all the good stuff. We could have been aspirational the whole time, but that’s not reality. Lip service is useless. It’s the destructive and deadly stuff of our society, its origin story and of course, taking note of who exactly set this place up. All this realizing. But add that to real time news reporting on racist police brutality and the stories of Black and Brown friends being pulled over by a racist person of authority enforcing a racist system that happens over and over again. It's necessary to get everyone up to speed, to a place of being outraged at racism in all its forms and noticing how it just perpetuates itself because it is baked in and reinforced. About time, right?!
One of Suzie’s kids, Milo, playing soccer at camp!
But that’s where the work started for us as individuals. The session organizers Nina Tucker and Crystal Williams challenged us to look inward first. Oof, when you are trying to be open and honest, that can hurt. As a biracial woman can I actually have my own implicit bias? Oh yes! Am I just being complicit with a racist system? Sometimes! How do I start to make real change?...? That’s a question for all of us, it’s what we have to figure out. Then we can start to really make society right, whether it’s at home with our kids, at school, local, state or federal levels.
Being open, honest, supportive and radically empathetic is how Stomping Ground is there for our kids. Let’s add anti-racist and wicked fun. We send our kids to SG knowing that it is different from the reality of our society. It is a non judgmental, inclusive experience. It’s fair, equal, peace-loving and kids certainly feel free there. It is not like our society (yet).
I feel so lucky to have been able to participate in this series, when I know that other people can’t take this time out of their day-to-day. So now it’s up to me to do something with this fortunate experience. Zords combine!
