What is systemic racism?

What is systemic racism? What is redlining and how has it been wielded in the United States? Can we see proof of these long-standing inequalities? And how can adults talk about systemic racism, implicit bias, protests, and privilege with kids in age-appropriate ways?

This viral Act.tv animation helps start the conversation. The explainer shares how America’s history of systemic racism affects every part of our daily lives through a clearly-told story of two students, and explains more about how we can start to fix it. Some background from Northeastern.edu:

Explaining racism to children is an essential conversation in families, irrespective of race or skin color, says Tracy Robinson-Wood, a professor of applied psychology who studies the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class, as well as racial socialization in interracial families…

Robinson-Wood says that families need to talk to their white children early and often, to teach them how to use their privilege to dismantle systems that oppress Black people… Resources such as those provided by the Center for Racial Justice in Education, can be a valuable starting point for parents and guardians looking for ways to educate their children.

Then TED-Ed and Act.tv provide additional review questions and resources for further discussion, including this from The New York Times: Whites have a huge wealth gap over blacks (but don’t know it).

And via The Conscious Kid: Are your kids too young to talk about race?

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A post shared by The Conscious Kid (@theconsciouskid) on May 28, 2020 at 12:43pm PDT

Watch these related videos next:
• The psychology behind ‘Us vs Them’
• How to Understand Power
• Economics in Plain English: What is money?

Plus, watch more stories affected by racism:
• Matthew Henson’s historic expedition to the North Pole
• The 1913 women’s suffrage march on Washington D.C.
• Marian Anderson’s ‘defiant performance’ at the Lincoln Memorial