Mommy, what’s a nigger?
One anecdote of the progress we’ve made: when two staff members at the Museum brought in their children to see this exhibition, they were curious to see what their kids would pick up on. As they looked at the work, the parents learned that neither of the boys age 9 and 10 had ever heard the word nigger. I was shocked and happy to find out that they had not heard that word slung about on the playground and that when they did hear it for the first time, a parent had the opportunity to put the word into context and explain something of how harsh it really is. At the same time, I was a little disappointed that after having studied the civil rights movement numerous times in school that the boys didn’t know about the word.
I can understand that age is a huge issue here, but the situation left me with the question, At what point do you teach children about the ugliest parts of racism?
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