Episode 42: How to Talk with Kids About Race
Description
Have you ever struggled to explain racism to your kids? Flubbed conversations at the dinner table? Unsure how racism and antisemitism fit together, or how to process the 2020 racial reckoning and subsequent backlash? Then be sure to catch our conversation with Buffie Longmire-Avital, Ph.D., a psychology professor who identifies as a Black American Jewish woman. She shares her research about Jewish families as well as her own perspective as the mother of two biracial sons. She shares the implications of a recent incident at her son’s school, in which white and Black students split into opposing football teams, leaving her son on the sidelines. She offers advice on how parents, especially white Jewish parents, can better prepare their kids to respond to microaggressions and make Jewish communities more embracing spaces. Her research is part of a Reconstructionist Rabbinical College project called “Race, Religion and American Judaism.” At the top of the episode, Rabbi Mira Wasserman joins to explain the project and the importance of Longmire-Avital's research.
Theme song, “Ilu Finu” by Rabbi Miriam Margles. Her album This is the Day is available for purchase at CDBaby: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/miriammarglesandthehadarensemb
Visit our home on the web — Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations: http://evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org
Subscribe by Email at http://subscribebyemail.com/evolve.fireside.fm/rss
Read these show notes on the web at https://evolve.fireside.fm/1
This podcast is produced by Reconstructing Judaism. Visit us at ReconstructingJudaism.org.
Special Guests: Buffie Longmire-Avital, Ph.D. and Rabbi Mira Beth Wasserman, Ph.D..
Links:
- Read Buffie's Evolve essay, "It Has Always Been A Shared Story: Finding the Narratives of Diversity, Inclusion, and Racial Equity in Judaism"
- Read Bryan's story about "Race, Religion and American Judaism"
- Explore the "Race, Religion & American Judaism" project
- Leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts
- Jewish Exponent covers "Race, Religion and American Judaism"
- Barak Obama's 2008 speech on Race
- When They See Us (Film about the Central Park Five)
- Charles Stuart Case
United States
