discuss ethnic differences with kids?
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discuss ethnic differences with kids?
| Thu, 11-22-2007 - 7:59am |
We never discuss eth ic differences in our house--even in our extended family.
| Thu, 11-22-2007 - 7:59am |
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I hope for the same thing as far as not noticing race and ethnic origin. I think it is way better than it used to be, unfortunatly there will always be those that are prejudiced, but on a whole things are way better than when I was a kid (a million yrs ago)
In our family nobody cares one way or another, I have 3 nephews with gf's that are black, and my niece is married to a Jewish guy, we all get along pretty well. And the problems that we do have with the one gal have nothing to do with her color.
I know you have mentioned your FIL before. I thought he had met K before, I remember a post about your in laws
Noticing ethnic/cultural differences is not the same as being a racist. In fact, problems arise when those cultural differences are ignored and not respected. For example, our cultural differences color how we approach our lives and how we interact with others.
Many, many years ago I attended a play in Amsterdam. Each character in the play represented a person of a different cultural identify and spoke in the language with the same intonation/ gestures/ language structure of their character. Now of the characters were "extremes" cardboard representations. It was obvious where that character was from.
Also,race is not the same as cultural differences. For example, a middle class white teenager from the southern states will most likely have more similar cultural norms as her
black middle class classmate than she would have with a white middle class teenager from Quebec City or Lac St-Jean.
I surely agree with what you are saying. If we were to have guests at our house that were of a different culture we certainly would respect their beliefs etc. Like with our friends that are Muslim, we are Christian, but since they are Muslim I certainly don't serve them pork for dinner.
But on the other hand, if others that have adopted a child from another country are over, we don't treat those children any different than we would any children from ours or any others in the family. A lot depends on how those children are being raised. Some people will raise adopted children and never get into their actual heritage and others do a great deal to maintain that connection to their real heritage. KWIM?
I guess it all depends on what is going on in that particular family. I just wouldn't point out differences just for the sake of pointing them out.
Obviously, your friends are not strict Muslims. You would not serve them any meat, if they were. The meat has to prepared under Islamic dietary laws; it is like Jews keeping kosher.
And dietary laws are just the "tip of the iceberg". There are other,more profound differences. For example, there is woman in Vancouver that makes her living helping mix-cultural couples understand and bridge the gap of the differences.
Of course, it depends on how people are raised. Adopted children would be raised in the culture of their adopted parents. Again, it is the culture,not the race.
However, I would seem nothing wrong with asking the question "what it is like being Black or whatever" if the question is rephased "what it is like being Black or Asian or whatever in a predominately white society?". We all know that racism does exist and visible minorities are treated differently. We can only eliminate racism if we acknowledge that it exists.
Racism does exist for sure and there are so many kinds of prejudice in our world. Even just the prejudice against people who are overweight is appaling to see. I'm sure there will always be some degree of racism in the world, but hopefully it will just continue to deminish. I see a hugh difference between what it was like when I was a kid and now. And that is a very good thing.
We do have some discussions within our family at times about race, culture and religious practices. But we don't make a huge thing of it and I think if I were in the situation that the original poster was in, I wouldn't necessarily bring up any discussion, but if something did come up I wouldn't quiet it either.
I hope you understand what I am trying to say. I love to learn about other peoples lives, customs etc. but I don't want someone to feel singled out because of their "differences"
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