Robin DiAngelo in her clip: Being Nice is not going to end Racism, says by 3-4 years of age children understand it is better to be white. ALL CHILDREN.
Early Childhood Educators and Professionals can and must use our voices to question, to speak to children about differences, to think about our values and to engage with empathy and respect for all, humans and non-humans.
https://www.embracerace.org/resources/your-5-year-old-is-already-racially-biased-heres-what-you-can-do-about-it
Thank you for this post Jan and for sharing your perspective. I too have been impacted by the research about how children internalize what they observe about race – which is evident from 3 months of age! As you so eloquently say, if we don’t engage in conversation with our young children about racism, our silence will say way too much. I found this quick summary of research helpful too: http://www.childrenscommunityschool.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/theyre-not-too-young-1.pdf