The “talk”– What It Is and Why We Should All Have Our Own
The other week I was sharing stories with a colleague of mine about growing up. I mentioned to him that my parents had “the talk” with me at a fairly young age, and he looked up at me confused. He had no idea what I was talking about.
Having “the talk” with your kids can mean many different things for different families – there certainly isn’t only one kind of “talk” I got from my parents. But for Black families, it primarily refers to that first, difficult conversation parents have to have with their children about their race and the dangers it can present in the real world.
For us, “the talk” usually covers topics like safety, interacting with the police, being mindful of how people may perceive us in public environments, staying away from risky situations, and generally remaining conscious of how our race can be negatively (and dangerously) perceived. Of course, these conversations happen repeatedly in most families as children grow up, but for children of color, there’s always that first “talk”.
It’s an unveiling of the reality of the world. It takes away your childish innocence. And above all, it introduces children to the ugly lived realities – violent, unjust, and sometimes fatal – of systemic racism.
Because it’s so difficult, as Black parents we have to ask ourselves: is this a worthwhile endeavor? Should we be continuing to talk to our children about race in this way? Is it too much for young kids to hear?
Overwhelmingly, I think the answer is yes, we do have to have “the talk”. As parents, it is our job to keep our children safe, and understanding risk is the foundation of safety. Telling children they may be unsafe in the world is difficult for any parent to swallow. But it’s a reality, and sharing it with kids allows them to process the role of racism in society with the guidance of their elders.
I remember coming home from school one day when I was 12 or 13 and facing “the talk” with my parents.
I was in middle school at the time, and that day my friend’s older brother had driven us home. Someone at some point mentioned that there was marijuana in the car. I wasn’t involved in the conversation but when I got out at my house, I was sufficiently surprised that I marched right in and told my parents.
I could never have expected the response I got from them. My mom and dad were incensed that I had been so irresponsible. I shouldn’t have been in that car, I shouldn’t have been with those friends, and did I even think for one second what the possible consequences could have been if the police pulled us over?
As a fairly innocent 12 year-old at the time, I was confused by how the situation had suddenly become my fault. My parents proceeded to explain exactly why they were so (justifiably) concerned.
If the police had pulled us over, they said, you, the only Black kid in the car, would have been treated differently. How would you have handled that?
I didn’t know…probably like I’d handle any other conversation with an authority figure?
Wrong. You would keep your hands still and somewhere the officer could clearly see them. You’d address them as “Sir” or “Ma’am” and you would use the utmost politeness no matter how unfairly you felt they were treating you.
I remember this conversation going on for a while, and finally ending when I agreed to everything my parents said and accepted the blame for having made the wrong decision (and the wrong friends).
But I also remember feeling angry. I hadn’t done anything wrong. Why was I being punished? My friends weren’t like that – it was one of the older kids who was really at fault. And all the stuff about the police: why should I be treated differently just because I’m the Black kid in a mostly white town?
Looking back, it was a moment of great parenting. Knowing what I know now, it must have been hard to articulate with such conviction that it was my responsibility to watch what I said, how I acted, and how I was perceived based on my race. Because in theory, it shouldn’t be. But in reality, taking that responsibility can save your life. And I’m grateful to my parents for having the foresight and strength to spell things out for me so starkly.
Now that I’m a parent, I think about how I will have this conversation with my own girls, who are of mixed racial and ethnic backgrounds. The moment you have to look your child in the eye and confirm for them that yes, they are different, and yes, that can be dangerous in this world. It’s a painful moment in any parent’s life.
For young Black children, in particular, this first moment of recognition can fundamentally change who you are and how you present yourself. It can feel inauthentic for many, a form of enforced “culture-coding” that takes you away from your true self.
And historically, “the talk” has been kept alive by the construction of Black children – and young Black men especially – as dangerous, unruly, or even prone to crime.
In fact, a psychological study in 2014 found that white people often associate Black youth with higher degrees of culpability. In one experiment, respondents had to rate the innocence of people ranging from infants to 25 year-olds, who were white, Black, or of undisclosed race. There was no difference in their judgements for all children up to 9 years old, but the study found that Black children after the age of 10 are considered significantly less innocent than all other children.
The idea that Black children represent a threat is as old as the Jim Crow laws of the 19th century. But in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, news media helped cement and deepen the conception of Black youth as a potentially threatening force in society. With Nixon’s war on crime and Reagan’s war on drugs, the association of young Black men with drug dealing, drug use, and violent crime became stronger in the mind of the American public. All of which culminated in the ‘90s with the introduction of the term “superpredator,” a buzzword that would come to demonize an entire generation of young Black men. These prejudicial associations and representations only reinforced anti-Black biases that already existed within American society at large, and particularly within our police forces.
Of course, Black children also grow up learning the nation’s long history of falsely accusing Black people of crime. The Central Park Five was perhaps the most symbolic case when I was growing up in the ‘90s. These five teenagers – four Black and one Latin American – were wrongly convicted of raping and assaulting a white female jogger in Central Park in 1989, partly based on police-coerced confessions. They spent between 6 and 13 years in prison, until they were fully exonerated in 2002, when the actual culprit – a convicted murderer and serial rapist – finally confessed.
While “the talk” represents an initial moment of recognition, it’s only one of the conversations, stories, and representations around the dangers of “Blackness” that we grow up with. Stories like the Central Park Five or the often violent treatment of Black men and women by American police convince us of the stakes our parents are trying to explain in that first “talk.”
It’s critical that Black parents have that conversation with their children, but in 2022, it’s also crucial that white parents speak to their children about race, racism, and its potentially dangerous implications for their friends and colleagues of color.
Just as Black middle schoolers have to learn that our skin color can force us into dangerous situations, white children should be taught to understand that reality and the roles they play. They can benefit from discussions around privilege, and how they can use theirs to help de-escalate situations should they ever have to. Building that empathy and allyship at an early age is the only way we can help Black families become less reliant on “the talk”.
Because in reality “the talk” is probably not going anywhere for a long time – it is sustained by the power of our biases, and those are very difficult for human beings to get rid of. No matter how much we talk about antiracism in schools, unconscious bias will persist and it will impact how “different” people continue to be treated differently.
In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, I think many people – especially white people – came to understand that “the talk” is a (regrettable) mainstay of Black childhood and culture. And we need that awareness to keep increasing. By building empathy for the unique difficulties Black parents and children face around race, we can all become more responsible and sensitive in situations where we can help de-escalate or educate.
The conversation can be difficult for everyone for different reasons. White parents may be afraid of saying the wrong thing. Black parents may resist exposing the harsh realities of racism too soon to their children. But if we continue to normalize “the talk” and make sure children are productively and safely aware of their differences, then we can start building toward a future where “the talk” becomes a smaller and smaller memory in our culture and communities.
Porter Braswell
