Sitting in her grandmother’s living room in Teaneck, N.J., Nakebria Murray ponders the question of race in America. After realizing that she is not exactly sure what “race” means, the self-described “half-brown, half-tan” African-American 8-year-old says she knows the difference between white and black people sometimes means trouble in America.
“Sometimes people don’t like one another. White people and black people are not the same; their skin and the way they speak.” She believes it is hard for white and black people to be friends, but she is not sure why. “I don’t know why, they’re just so different,” she says.
Nakebria is part of a new generation of children who are growing up in an increasingly diverse America. If Census statistics hold true, by the time Nakebria is in college, almost 40 percent of the United States population will be minority (compared to the current 30 percent). By the time Nakebria has grandchildren; America will be a majority-minority country.
Children like Nakebria have seen considerable progress on the racial forefront in America: The first black man to become President, two black secretaries of state, the first Indian-American governor, and the rise of powerful minority CEOs like Dick Parsons at Time Warner and Indra Nooyi at PepsiCo.
However, there have been setbacks. The number of hate groups in the United States has grown by 48 percent, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, exposing the racial divide of a city. Nooses started appearing in the aftermath of Jena Six, and crimes against Muslims skyrocketed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Children growing up now certainly know what race is, even if they cannot quite define it, says Rebecca Bigler, psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Bigler heads the university’s Gender and Racial Attitudes Lab. She says that children do not quite comprehend the differences between Latinos and Asians, but they clearly know that black and white people have differences.
“Race doesn’t mean to a child what it means to adults. They think about it differently, they focus on the external attributes.” Yet, she says children still place some sort of emphasis on race, even if they do not know why.
Many of today’s children seem to think that the idea of race – and particularly racism – is in the past. An analysis of various studies on race by The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement showed that young people’s attitudes towards race are much more positive than a generation ago. They are more open to interracial communities, marriages, and friendships.
“I don’t like the old ways, when it was in the 1980s. I heard that many white people did not like black people back then. I do not get the reasons. White people and black people are just people. Do not kill them; just be friends with them. People are the same, except for their color," says Nakebria.
Ten-year-old Julius Gutierrez of Clifton, New Jersey, agrees that segregation seems very passé. “The past is the past and now is now. That is what solves problems. What happens in the past stays in the past.”
A graduate student at the University of Arizona, Jenn Fang, 25, thinks that today’s children do not fully understand the problem of race. “Asking kids today about racism will only trigger images of lynching, of slurs, and of something committed by parents in the past.”
Fang says it is not just young kids. She says many of her peers have also “internalized” the stereotypes and racist attitudes of their parents, but do not associate themselves with racism, “because we don't have a culture of racial dialogue, those stereotypes are not identified as coming from the same root of racism as lynching and slavery,” she says.
Many experts, like Bigler, say that while the spirit of today’s youth is a step in the right direction, the problems of race are too deep to go away anytime soon. She says that some of the “color-blind” or “color-mute” attitudes that kids are learning today do not necessarily deal with the problem adequately.
“Some people are anxious to move into a world in which we’re past race and where people could really be colorblind. We are not there yet because of the still proficient racial inequalities in America. If you look at occupational status, if you look at educational achievement, if you look at mental health, if you look at physical health, what you see is a world where African Americans are still disadvantaged compared to white people. White people earn more money, they have better mental health, physical health, they live longer, and on and on. When the world is equal then we can say we don’t talk about race anymore.”
However, if children seem confused about race, it may be because of the mixed messages that they are getting from adults. In schools, many children learn, and even recite Martin Luther King Jr.'s message of equality, but at home, few families have integrated lifestyles that actually reflect his dream.
While attitudes toward racial equality may have improved in polling, numerous studies show that blacks and whites still largely live in self-segregated worlds. This means that the majority of blacks and whites live in separate communities, go to different schools, and socialize with friends who look just like they do.
“If you don’t work with somebody or live with somebody or do things together, how are you going to build the bridges of understanding and build on the commonalties that are there, but need to be uncovered and recognized?” says Norah Dooley, author of the children's book, Everybody Cooks Rice.
This new generation of youngsters will grow up surrounded by more “diversity” than ever before, but Fang, an Asian-American; cautions against superficial notions of racial awareness. "While our culture has become more multicultural, we have not yet addressed the fact that simply seeing people of a different background doesn't mean that we are accepting people of a different background. Consider children of my generation, who are exposed too much greater diversity on mainstream television than folks from the 50’s or 60’s, with many of these kids, you'll hear racial slurs and racial jokes bantered around comfortably and with ease.”
These kids could be passing their attitudes down to their little brothers and sisters, who are already receiving mixed messages about race from the media. Many of the most popular video games have labeling that illustrates either poor examples of minority characters or having racist undertones.
The situation in Hollywood is not much better. On the big screen, children still do not see much interracial pairing, particularly in the romance department. Consider the controversy over the movie “Hitch,” starring Will Smith, one of Hollywood’s highest paid actors. He admitted that during the casting of the romantic comedy, studio executives shied away from casting a white actress for fear of outrage in the United States. Even on the small screen, the major networks tend to go toward a lily-white line up.
However, as a testament to new generations evolving attitude, channels targeting young audiences found that integrated casts are an integral part of the formula to many successful shows. ABC Family president Paul Lee believes young viewers want to see more of a reflection of their lives on television. “They’re completely colorblind,” he says. “We’ve done a lot of things wrong as a nation, but we’ve clearly done something right here. They embrace other cultures.”
On another positive note, the personal lives of many in Hollywood do not seem to reflect the pre-civil rights attitude when it comes to programming. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Tom Cruise, and Meg Ryan, all have multi-ethnic families who may produce Hollywood’s next generation of starlets and executives with open minds regarding race.
Mixed-race families are on the rise in America, making up more than 7 percent of married couples in the United States, according to recent Census data. Julius says a multicultural family is what makes him open to other cultures. He lives with an Italian stepmother, an African-American stepfather, an African-American stepbrother and two bi-racial stepsiblings. It’s cool to have other people around you with different cultures,” he says, noting that his food choices are unlimited.
His stepmother, Danelle Nelson, is white. She says her kids are accepting of other races because they have been exposed to other cultures most of their lives.
She says she does not believe that a post-race society will be in the future for her kids, because “people are ignorant.” However, she thinks that we can make changes by keeping an open mind. She says her kids genuinely seem immune to the concept of race. “I can see it in the girls they like. They are white, they are Hispanic, and they are mixed. They don’t see them as anything but girls,” she laughs. “Race doesn’t mean anything to them.”
Carlotta LaNier hopes that race will one day be irrelevant in American society. As a 14-year-old teenager, she was a member of the infamous “Little Rock Nine,” a group of black students who integrated an Arkansas high school in 1957, with the help of the National Guard. She endured racism that many young people probably could not imagine – death threats, name calling, isolation, and physical violence.
“Race will always be a key factor,” she says. “There will always be an element of people that feel like they have to step on someone in our society.”
She thinks that progress with this generation is happening, but wants to see more in our efforts to educate children about race and discrimination. She says that education about the past is crucial to young kids growing up today. “They need to be aware of what has taken place. You can forget if you do not teach it, and you can teach it in a positive way.”
Trudi Williams agrees. An educator for over 30 years and the mother of an 8-year-old daughter, she thinks we are coming closer to a better world about race. “Racism certainly does exist in our children and it exists because of us. If they learn it, it’s the culture, the climate.”
Williams is a consultant with the Anti-Prejudice Consortium in Atlanta, Ga. She says that as society changes, so do her hopes for the new generation. “When you leave children alone, they don’t see race or color. That is something that is learned. Young people are looking to move forward.” Her own daughter has hopes of being president, a job she could not see for her future until now. “As much as I love my baby, I couldn’t see it. Now I can. I can see that there is a possibility where my baby can be president.”
In fact, during the presidential elections, then Senator Obama, seemed to be on the minds of many children today. “I wanted to see Obama win because no black person has been president. I never knew a black person could be president,” says Nakebria.
However, 10-year-old Tarin, Julius’ stepbrother, expressed some concern about a black president. “As President, Barack Obama, people probably wouldn’t like him because he’s black and he may get shot like Kennedy.”
For Professor Bigler, having a conversation on race is crucial for children who are growing up today. “Kids are picking up this message that race is something you can’t talk about. Something you have to pretend you do not see. Parents are pretending they do not see race, but they do.”
Sociologist Joe Feagin of Texas A&M University and many others worry about the conversations behind closed doors, and the more subtle forms of prejudice. His book, Two-Faced Racism: Whites in the Blackstage and the Frontstage, examines college students’ ideas of race.
“Over the last 30 years, a lot of the overt stuff has declined. We have this color-blind rhetoric. It is a facade. Part of this color-blind facade is to fake it. The younger generation knows how to hide it. Just put in the n-word and Obama in Google. You get hundreds of thousands of hits. Facebook and MySpace have become part of that backstage I am talking about. Whites feel like they can say how they really feel about racial matters on Facebook and MySpace. These are not 70-year-olds, these are that next generation.”
Not just whites mask racist sentiments. A study by New American Media found that the three major minority communities in America (blacks, Hispanics, and Asians) all have highly prejudiced and negative views about each other.
Fang, who created the blog at reappropriate.com, says the issue of race is not going away with the next generation of kids, but it can get better. “Combating racism comes from increasing dialogue and creating more educational opportunities to truly address racial/ethnic differences. That means teaching more inclusive history and social studies units at schools, and providing avenues for kids to talk about their racial/ethnic narratives.” She says, “putting a bunch of kids’ together and expecting racism to disappear is unrealistic: We can't undo generations of racism in 10 or 20 years.”
While adults appear to see only a hazy picture of exactly what race will mean for the next generation, kids like Julius seem to have a crystal clear view of how the world will look when they grow up. “In the future it will be over and done with,” he says. “Because I know somebody will come up with a plan for everyone to get along and stop the fights and violence.”
Tarin agrees, “I think there will be one person that will be man enough to do what Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks did,” he says. “I hope racism stops because I don’t like it. It’s bad.” However, for now, Julius, Tarin and Nakebria are not too worried about color. “Kids just want to play around,” says Tarin. “They don’t care if you’re white, black, Puerto Rican or whatever, they just want to play around and have fun outside.”