Latasha Morrison, the founder of Be The Bridge, says reconciliation in a racially divided country begins with conversations at home. In today’s episode, she’ll share how you can start equipping your children to start the work of racial unity.
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YOUR CUE
- Create a safe space at home to foster conversations about race with your children in a kid-friendly way.
- Ensure your relationships model an appreciation for diversity.
- Expose your children to various cultures through diverse toys, books, and environments.
RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE
Tasha’s organization aiming to build a community of people who share a common goal of creating healthy dialogue about race.
QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE
God is at work in every culture, every ethnicity, and every race.
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You can’t reconcile what you don’t recognize.
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When it comes to race, don’t teach color blindness — the intent is good, but the impact is bad.
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Our unity can inspire not only our children but lead others to Christ.
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EPISODE RECAP
Now is the time to start having conversations with your kids about racial unity and equality.
Each day, we’re faced with a sad, difficult-to-swallow truth: Our unity with one another is broken. We know the answer is Jesus, so why is it so for us to come together?
Eighty percent of what kids learn is from their parents, so that means there’s an increased likelihood they’ll inherit our fears, anxieties, biases, and prejudices. The media is filled with examples of a lack of awareness, acknowledgment, and forgiveness when it comes to racial diversity. Unfortunately, many of us have long taken a “Nothing is broken and everything is fine” approach to this growing tension.
That’s why conversations need to start right now with your children. Talk about race in an age-appropriate way. Remind your children that although God created us to look differently, He loves us all the same. And He wants us to love everyone like He loves them.
If we want to live authentically in the fullness of God’s love, we have to step over racial divides, acknowledge God’s creativity in all things, and seek to mend broken relationships. We can start working toward racial unity by having conversations and teaching our children about race and equality.
Start the conversation by embracing the way your child thinks.
Kids inherently think in categories, so help them understand what ‘ethnicity’ is in the context of God’s creation of nations, tribes, and different races they notice each day. Teach your kids to acknowledge racial differences through positive, beautiful words.
If you don’t understand ethnicity enough to explain it to your children, start researching for yourself first. Also, take a look at your own friendships — do your relationships model the mosaic of God’s creation? If not, perhaps diversifying your friendships is the first step.
Be intentional about exposing your kids to various ethnicities and experiences. Buy toys of different ethnicities, read books that have characters that look different from them, and let them visit different churches that are diverse so they can interact with kids who look nothing like them.
LATASHA MORRISON
CARLOS WHITTAKER
Carlos is an author, speaker, and content creator living in Nashville, TN with his wife Heather and 3 kids Sohaila, Seanna, and Losiah. He is addicted to social media, his wife’s enchiladas, and is determined to have his daughters teach him to land a backflip on the trampoline by the time he is 45.
KRISTEN IVY
Kristen is the Executive Director of Messaging at Orange, Director of The Phase Project, and co-author of Playing For Keeps and It’s Just a Phase – So Don’t Miss It. She combines her degree in secondary education with a Master of Divinity and lives with her husband, Matt, and their three children, Sawyer, Hensley, and Raleigh, in Cumming, GA.
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Source: The Parent Cue
