Discussing Skin and Racism in The Lumber Primes (K/1)

Before launching into our discussion about skin, we first checked in with the Lumber Primes to see what the children remembered about gene expression from our previous discussions:

Ri You can look different than what your parents look like.

Ra Your genes decide what you look like. Both parents' genes need to want you to have blue eyes, but if one parent wants  you to have brown eyes, then you’ll get brown eyes.

I If your mom had a giant cut, you wouldn’t get a cut. But if your mom and dad have freckles then you will probably have freckles.

Li Genes are what make up your body.

Then, we spent a morning discussing the function of skin. Did you know that skin is actually your largest organ? Many Lumber Primes talked about how skin keeps all of the other important parts of our bodies safe and protected, then they wanted to make a list of everything they could think of that is inside our bodies (that you can't see from the outside). Their list included cells, bones, and organs like the brain. lungs, kidneys, heart and intestines. 

Our next step was to ask the children to use what they have learned about genes to explain why skin comes in so many colors. Here are some of their responses.

Why does skin come in so many colors?

Ez Another way to describe this is DNA.

Jo Because of how much melanin is in your skin.

Sa Because of your genes,

Am Different colors because of your genes and your body helps make the color of your hair and your eyes and your skin.

Ri Your parents. You would be the same as your parents, like if you grew in their body.

Ro If you have just a bit of melanin, your skin is lighter. If you have a lot of melanin then you would have darker skin.

Skin and Racism

After laying the groundwork with our discussions of community, power, genetics and the function of skin, we were ready to tie these concepts together and explicitly introduce the concept of racism. We used the First Conversations book Our Skin as a starting point.

(If Our Skin is not a part of your family library, we highly suggest that you get a copy. Here is a great video of one of the authors, Megan Madison, reading Our Skin).

One page of the book describes some of the words that we use to talk about skin color, groups of people, and where people's ancestors come from. A few students called out when a word we listed resonated with them:

"I am Black because I have a lot of melanin."

"I’m mixed."

"I’m African American!"

"I’m biracial!"

We talked about how the words we use to describe skin color and ancestry can change as people figure out words that fit them best. We drew a comparison to how words used to describe Indigenous people have changed over time. Teachers advised that, just like pronouns, the most important thing is to listen to what words other people want you to use to talk about their skin and ancestry and the groups they belong to. We talked about how the book mentions "people of color" to talk about all of the groups of people that have more melanin, and that recently we teachers learned a new term: "people of the global majority." Even though when we look around our school and the communities where we live in Western Massachusetts and Vermont, we often see more people who are white, it's actually true that when you consider all of the people living all around the world, there are  actually more people who have more melanin in their skin than there are white people. 

We continued reading:

"A long time ago, before you were born, a group of white people made an idea called race. They sorted people by skin color and said that white people were better, smarter, prettier, and deserved more than everybody else. That's not true or fair at all! But it's a story that has been told for a long time. When people believe this untrue story about race, that's called racism."

This page of the book sparked such outrage in the children! We weren't able to capture all of their comments because the conversation moved so quickly, but here are a few snippets:

I If I was back in time, I’d say you have to like both-- every skin color.

Ra I’m white and some of my friends are Black and they’re NOT stupid. I’m against this. I’d stand against this. I am white and I don’t want to have everything. If I got everything I wanted, I wouldn’t like that. 

F If I saw that in the newspaper I would definitely rip it up.

RF  Me and Amy say, ‘Don’t fear the fat!’ for people that don’t know that being fat is okay. I wanna say, ‘Don’t fear the black!’

D  I wouldn’t care if someone thought that that thing was true. I would just make sure to tell them the real true things.

H If I saw that in the newspaper I would throw it in the fireplace.

Ru So if I were black [back then], I’d just keep quiet and be safe. If I was white I would get a bunch of people to help me say what’s not true.

Sa If I was alive back then I would say “no people are better than others”. Even if I went to jail, I would keep saying that everyone is good. 

Ez If I heard those untrue things, I would just forget about it. I wouldn’t engage. They couldn’t force me to do it.

Li If I heard about them I would just hate them.

Ro I’d make a new rule that said, “All skin is good.” 

We talked a bit about the pigment melanin, which determines your skin color, and how it also plays a role in your hair and eye color. The Lumber Primes were quick to identify the absurdity of placing value on the amount of melanin in your skin, and also how it didn't make sense that those same white men didn't also say that it was bad to have more melanin in your eyes or hair. One student wondered if maybe the people who made up the idea of race had brown eyes or brown hair, and they didn't want to make a rule against themselves.

The book goes on to say,

"Racism is also the things people do and the unfair rules they  make about race so that white people get more power, and are treated better than everybody else. Racism happens in lots of big and small ways. It's all around us, even if we don't always notice it. Racism can be a rule, like if someone says only friends with white skin can play. Racism can be an idea like thinking that princesses can only have one skin color. Racism can be a way we've done things for a long time, like how there aren't as many books written about people of color. Racism can be on purpose, like calling a person of color a mean name because of their skin color. Racism can be a mistake, like if the same friend always has to play the bad guy. Racism hurts and is always unfair.”

There are so many possible directions for future conversations in the Lumber Primes, and we will continue to explore the ideas of race and bias with more nuance as the year continues, and use the children's understanding of racism to draw comparisons to other -isms like sexism, ageism, and ableism. We will also use the definition of race presented in the book to talk about privilege in developmentally appropriate ways.

Right away, however, we wanted to normalize the idea that we will make mistakes, and when you make a mistake you fix it right away and work hard to do better in the future. I (Sandy) shared a story with the children about how when I started teaching in my very first preschool class more than 15 years ago, I decided that I wanted to decorate my classroom with lots of photographs of children. One day, I realized looking around my room, that almost all of the photographs I found and cut out of magazines and old calendars showed white children. Even though I wasn't trying to be mean, only having pictures of white kids on my classroom walls was an example of racism. When I realized my mistake, I made sure to find more photos of kids with lots of different skin colors so that I wasn't accidentally teaching the students in my class that white people were better than people with other skin colors.