Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America by Jennifer Harvey (review)

Raising White Kids builds on Jennifer Harvey's body of anti-racism work addressing white audiences. Her previous books draw from Christian social ethics whereas Raising White Kids does not explicitly make a theological argument. That said, Harvey's ethical commitments, well established previously, remain the foundation of Raising White Kids. In this endeavor, Harvey aims to equip white parents, and anyone in relationship with white children, to raise "race conscious" kids, meaning kids capable of understanding the complexities of systemic racism and embodied racial identity, including their own white identity, who also will feel empowered to challenge racism in all its forms.

Harvey argues that most white children learn either "color-blind" or "diversity" approaches to race. Color-blind approaches coach children "not to see race," while diversity approaches "celebrate racial differences" without engaging injustices, privileges, or systemic dynamics experienced by different racial identities. Both approaches fail to help children develop a mature racial identity which is, Harvey says, "no different from physical, intellectual, or emotional development" (xxi). Drawing from Black psychologists Janet Helms and Beverly Daniel Tatum, Harvey outlines what racial identity development looks like in white identity. Harvey offers age-appropriate strategies for supporting this development in children, including helpful anecdotes drawn from her own life experiences. One such strategy, for example, is pointing out differences of all kinds, including skin tone, hair color and texture, early and often while making sure to include white skin tones and features in order to build an appreciation of differences and a foundation of normalized race talk without a white norm. From this early awareness adults can deepen understanding about the impacts of racialized differences. The point, Harvey says, is to cultivate comfort when talking openly with children as they process their experience, helping them stay curious, engaged, and non-reactive. Thus, as white children mature, aware of their own privileges, they will be both comfortable in their own skin and able to identify racism around them. One of Harvey's strongest chapters explores what it means that our context-specific encounters with each other occur within deeply encoded racial social structures that transcend our rationality and our words. We must learn to recognize and resist these powerful racial scripts as we engage in antiracism work.

Two weeks on The New York Times bestseller list affirms Raising White Kids' relevance and accessibility to popular audiences. Harvey's gift for translating complex theories into relatable reading is displayed in the book's deep roots in the field of critical studies of whiteness. And while making academic theory palatable to adults takes a particular skill, Harvey levels up by putting these theories into language one can use when communicating with children, even young children. This move is what renders Raising White Kids a truly unique and significant contribution to the field.

The most obvious group contexts for engagement of the book are church and secular book studies. Each chapter closes with a helpful, bulleted list of "working principles and questions" as well as a boxed set of "takeaways" summarizing the chapter's main points. That said, the book is also a great resource for educators working with children and youth and even white undergraduates who are just beginning to have conversations about race. Helms' racial identity development theory is not age-specific, and white people new to race-consciousness work often ask questions similar to those of younger white children who have been equipped to see race in the world around them and to express their curiosity. Raising White Kids is a nuanced, hopeful contribution to a nation in need of white people who can appropriately, respectfully, and courageously partner with BIPOC in effective antiracism work.