Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [75]
THE ROLE OF RACE
Both Mr. and Ms. Williams are very concerned about the impact of race on Alexander. They monitor his experiences closely. Their actions are very similar to those of other African American middle-class parents in the study.9 Mr. Williams explains how he and his wife orient their son:
What we try and do with Alexander is teach him that race unfortunately is the most important aspect of our national life. I mean, people look at other people and they see a color first. But that isn’t going to define who he is . . . He will succeed, despite racism. And I think he lives his life that way. I mean, he is amazingly, refreshingly an individual. Uh, and he continues to be able to draw people to him . . . He just—he makes friends easily, and I’m happy for him.
Mr. and Ms. Williams are adamant, however, that race not be “an excuse” for failing to succeed in life:
We discuss how race impacts on my life as an attorney, and we discuss how race will impact on his life. The one teaching that he takes away from this is that he is never to use discrimination as an excuse for not doing his best.
Ms. Williams comments that racial issues help shape her decisions about Alex’s activities. She monitors the racial composition of each activity before she enrolls her son:
We have been very careful not to put him in situations where he is the only Black child. We’ve been very careful about that. Not only is that not fair, but we’ve also been careful to make sure he mixed with a group . . . let’s say of white kids whose parents . . . uh, I, never thought I’d be using this—but my dad used to say—are cultured. You know. They’ve been introduced to many different types of people and can accept that there are differences in people in a positive manner.
Note that Ms. Williams’s concerns reflect two distinct goals. She does not want Alexander to be the only Black child in any given activity. In this regard, she seems quite successful. Across all the activities we observed—piano, soccer, guitar, choir, baseball, basketball, and the school play—Alexander was one of the few Black children, but he was never the only Black child. At school, his grade level is about 10 percent Black. His friends include both Black and white children. The Baptist church the family attends has an all-Black, middle-class membership. Ms. Williams’s success in achieving her second goal, that the whites with whom her son interacts be “cultured,” is more difficult to assess. This does not diminish its importance to her, however. During an interview, she related a story about a painful incident that had taken place several years earlier.
Alexander had attended the birthday party of a child the Williamses did not know well. The invitation was linked to his baby-sitter, Rose. From time to time, Alex would accompany Rose when she baby-sat for other families. A young boy in one of these families took a shine to Alex:
The kid was really attached to Alex . . . Alexander was invited to, I guess it must have been his second or third birthday party . . . we went, and, um . . . the uh, grandparent was there. . . . [During the party,] the grandparent kept saying, um, “That kid is pretty dark.” (laughing) [He asked,] “Who is that kid?” Well, I didn’t have to say anything because Rose took care of it. (laughing)
This event reinforced Ms. Williams’s conviction that she