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Indianapolis Star Learning their colors By Courtenay Edelhart February 26, 2006 Tania's skin is light brown, her dark hair nearly black. When asked what color she was, the 5-year-old Latina glanced down at her T-shirt, emblazoned with a pink guitar. "I'm pink," she said. Rifling through crayons at a nearby table, 5-year-old Brenasia Holiman, who is African-American, answered the same question. "I'm brown," she said. "My brother is light brown. My mama's dark brown, and my daddy's light brown." For most kindergartners at the Center for Inquiry, "What color are you?" was a very literal question. They didn't align themselves with a race as much as with a crayon color. A decade from now, they'd likely offer different answers, perhaps from self-segregated tables in the school cafeteria. When will the switch happen? At what age -- and why -- do children lose that racial innocence? For decades, researchers have scrutinized that question. The consensus is that children start to notice differences as early as age 2, but it isn't until 4 or 5 that they start to imbue them with meaning. "I don't call kids color-blind, because it's applying an adult concept," said Louise Derman-Sparks, professor of human development at Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena, Calif., and author of "Anti-Bias Curriculum," a guide for educators published by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. "Children notice differences in appearance very early, but there's no judgment," Derman-Sparks said. "When you say, 'Don't judge a book by its cover,' that doesn't mean you don't notice the picture on the cover or the binding." When very young children do discriminate, they're usually parroting an adult or something they've seen on television. Derman-Sparks urges enlightened adults to intervene at that crucial point, starting by identifying what motivates one child to reject another. "It may be an honest mistake. A white child seeing a dark-skinned child for the first time might think that child is dirty," she said. Some children use differences in background as a cover for avoiding someone they simply don't like. "That has to be corrected, too, because you don't want them to think it's OK to use that as an excuse," Derman-Sparks said. Natural curiosity Sometimes, though, children relay messages from home. That's when Derman-Sparks says to "be brave enough to open up a conversation with the parents. Ask them, 'Do you really want your child to grow up with these views in an increasingly diverse society with a global economy?' " Too many parents try to shut down innocent questions, said Michael Capuano, 38, of Broad Ripple. "It makes me sick to my stomach, the political correctness of life," he said. Children are naturally curious about the wheelchair Capuano's son Noah uses because of cerebral palsy. "Past generations were taught not to stare, not to talk about it, which just makes it seem bad," Capuano said. "But if you just explain to them, they're fine. They're like, 'Oh, cool chair,' and treat him like any other kid." Lessons from life Noah is in teacher Bonnie Beaumont's kindergarten class at the Center for Inquiry. The diversity of the class, which includes whites, blacks and Hispanics, is a more useful teaching tool than any book, Beaumont said. "All children experiment with different language and behavior," she said. "I'd rather they try it here, where I can talk to them, than have them say something to the wrong person out on the street and maybe get their teeth knocked out." Stacy Burnett, 30, lives in Irvington, but was raised in Georgia by her grandparents. Burnett, who is white, said when she was little, her grandfather told her not to associate with blacks. "I didn't go near them because I was afraid of them," she said. When Burnett was in eighth grade, a black family moved next door. That changed her perspective. "I thought, 'I don't understand this. They're fine. I don't know what all the fuss is about.' " Such first-hand interaction is a strong weapon against bigotry, experts say. "Children growing up in homogenous communities may not have experience with other groups other than what they see in the media, which isn't representative," said Mia Smith Bynum, a Purdue University psychology professor who studies black responses to discrimination. "If parents really want to teach children tolerance, they have to make a concerted effort to provide those first-hand experiences." But that's not always enough. Friday Walker, who is black, recalls being confused about race as a child. She once told a camp counselor that she was biracial because she was under the impression her light-skinned black mother was white. The counselor, a family friend who knew her mother, corrected her. "It broke my heart," Walker said, laughing. As a teenager, Walker, now 28, had friends of all races and was the only black girl on a volleyball team. Then came the 1992 Rodney King police brutality verdict, which ignited racial tension among her classmates at Manual High School. "It was just so weird," said Walker, who lives on the Eastside. "Black and white kids were calling each other names and getting into fights." Fearful kids turn to bigotry Walker said she never internalized the insults because her parents taught her racial pride. "I was comfortable with myself because I knew who my ancestors were and who I was." Perpetrators of overt racism tend to be children who are fearful at home,
said Peter Langman, author of "Jewish Issues in Multiculturalism,"
(Jason Aronson, $50) and director of psychology for KidsPeace, an Orefield,
Pa.-based charity for children in crisis. These days, however, bigotry usually is more subtle, said Carmen Van Kerckhove, a 28-year-old diversity trainer in New York City who was born in Hong Kong to Chinese and Belgian parents. "I got a lot of comments that on the surface seemed like compliments, but really they weren't," she said. "People would remark how fair my skin was, or about my hair, or that the bridge of my nose was high instead of flat like a lot of Asians'. "They were telling me I was pretty, but it was always clear to me that what they liked about me were my white features, and those are the subtle cues kids pick up on." If it all seems hopeless, don't be discouraged, said Anthony Antonio, a Stanford University education professor who studies teens' and young adults' friendship choices. "Initially, we choose people based on similarities, whether it's race, behaviors, hobbies, values," he said. "Then we get to college or some other more diverse setting, and we reimmerse ourselves in our own culture to solidify that sense of self, which ultimately generates the confidence to go out into the world and cross cultural borders."
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