White Lies We Tell Our Children | Colin Stokes | TEDxBeaconStreet

my wife and I had the talk with our daughter this year no not not the one about the penis in the vagina now the one about who puts the presents under the tree now her little brother is still a believer so I mean he's pretty confident that reindeer can't fly but he just figures that Santa has another way of getting around to all those houses I mean there's a Google tracker that shows where Santa is every hour of the night so I think we're good but his big sister was 9 and this year the jig was up yeah the the wrapping paper was a little too similar to the gifts that came from family members there was some handwriting on one of the boxes it was a little too familiar there may have been a price tag on something so you know she figured it out and she called us out and was really tough for her she loved believing in magic living in a world where presents came from totally unexplainable places it's awesome finding out that the things that you wanted arrived because your parents paid for them with money what a letdown and it made me wonder why are we working so hard to cultivate an illusion aren't we just digging a bigger and bigger hole for ourselves for when our kids discover the tricks isn't it magic enough that we buy you all this stuff and I mean there's a lot of magic going around I mean if you look at TV and commercials and movies and like Pinterest American parents are single handedly expected to orchestrate the magic of childhood from October to December there's like three epic theatrical events called Halloween Thanksgiving and Christmas Hanukkah American present-giving Day which are our children's permanent childhood memories you throw in Easter and birthday parties and the Tooth Fairy and we are producing more amazing shows than Shonda Rhimes it's exhausting now I know what you're thinking at least some of you are first world problems yeah the the fact that this is the hardest parenting moment that I've had this year tells you something important about me actually it may be the most important thing about me I have so much privilege that it's ridiculous my life is so free from obstacles that it's implausible but here's something weird I didn't know I'm privileged until embarrassingly late in my life it's been a disillusionment but a slow-motion one in fact I feel a little bit like my daughter in a way we've both just learned that magic isn't real and like her I'm wondering why so many people have been lying to me about it making me feel that the the gifts that I have just appeared when actually they were bought and paid for I would like to know why we are working so hard to cultivate an illusion like like many Americans I spent most of my life in homogenous places racially and economically in my case white suburb in San Antonio an Ivy League school I worked in the arts in New York and nonprofits in Boston and I have been oblivious to the history of those places and the institutions where I've worked the choices that people before me have made about what resources to keep and and where to deny those resources we're not taught or talked about anyway I missed them I wanted to believe in the magic this past year or so the difference between my privileged family and millions of others in my country has been harder to miss take the talk for instance no still not the one about the penis in the vagina now this is the one that I've read so much about in that many of you have lived and that's the one that parents of black children have with their kids especially boys when they're my kids age telling them how to dress how to behave outside at night what to do when you see a police car or a person in uniform to avoid serious life-altering trouble I do not have to tell my children anything about how to interact with the police honestly they can pretty much do whatever they want play with toy guns wear hoodies play loud music from the car forget to signal a turn and they'll be ignored or given a warning but each of these behaviors has led to death when a person with dark skin does them what I am learning is that that is just the most visible injustice the fact is that in my country the distribution of wealth income educational attainment health imprisonment representation and entertainment and business leadership overwhelmingly favor white people including me this is really hard for me to get my brain around I feel like my daughter I can't believe in magic reindeer anymore that there's no egalitarian fairy that means that the things the privilege that I have didn't come to me because I was a good boy it came to me because I inherited it from my family along with my skin color I am really tempted to keep the myths alive and there are plenty of people who are willing to sell it to me my favorite Hollywood movies just keep on telling me the same story the forces of good will conquer the forces of evil and by forces of good I mean the white American man and his devoted multicultural sidekicks and by forces of evil I mean faceless disposable clones and my children are susceptible to the same propaganda they're soaking it up my son told me he had a new Chinese classmate and I asked him if the the boy talked with a Chinese accent he said no a normal one I mean he's a six-year-old boy so empathy is kind of a long shot but you know I can't help but notice that there's heavy marketing coming at him from dozens of toy and game franchises all telling the story of a tribe with one color scheme trying to defeat the tribe with another color scheme led of course by a light-skinned male hero chosen by destiny I mean he's being told he's the center of the universe it's no wonder that he thinks a fairy comes to his room to buy his teeth but it's not just commercial interests that are promoting this magical thinking my kids are being taught the same stories that I grew up learning about Columbus and the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving stories that have more than a few flying reindeer in them and later they're gonna be taught that America's progress toward equality has been a gentle arc bending toward Obama from the Civil War to civil rights and now racism is over this is a history and a culture that is written to make people like me feel good and it works and now my children are coming home from school repeating this American monomyth back to me now it's one thing to tell white lies about who is really eating the cookies that we leave by the fireplace but I think it's my responsibility to raise two white children on the truth about privilege they're going to inherit the same opportunities that I have and they're going to be told every single day that they deserve them and that the world was made for them while it is less so for their classmates who have darker skin I don't know exactly how it's going to work how am I supposed to do my parenting job of boosting my kids self-esteem and confidence while at the same time gluing them into the invisible advantages that they can't help but receive I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with my own privilege how am I supposed to explain it to a fifth grader but that's what I have to do I think how can I let a culture beyond the white narrative into my home to make sure that it is part of my children's lives what can I say in response to a book or a movie to remind them that we are not the whole universe we're not even the center of it after all American history is full of brave heroes who shouted out the truth the radicals and the prophets the protestors and the movement builders maybe they point the way to small revolutionary victory that white parents can strive for don't draw a curtain around your children to protect their privilege pull it back and let them see how much the world is depending on them to change it recently I was driving my family through a part of Boston that we don't usually traffic and from the backseat I hear my daughter why are there so many black people in this neighborhood I took a moment to think maybe this is the talk we should be preparing for I don't know very much about it honey but I've been reading some things I said and I think that white people have not still don't want to live near black people or allow them to make very much money so they only let them buy houses in certain parts of the city and that was the end of the conversation there's so much more to say more bad news and more white lies but some stories do more harm than good try a little more truth-telling we'll all grow up and be a little wiser for it thank you you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 15,693

Rating: 4.7647057 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Life, Parenting, Race

Id: FoeRoAchf9g

Length: 12min 1sec (721 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 24 2015