The first time I remember learning about racial tension was in early school history lessons on the Civil War. In this context is wasn’t clear to me that race issues were not a thing of the past. When we did learn about modern racism, it instilled in me this odd sense of awareness that wasn’t entirely a positive thing. Whereas before, race was a complete nonissue, afterwards I developed a mental habit similar to the one where, when you tell yourself not to think about an elephant, all you think about is an elephant. I grew up in an almost completely white school, which didn’t help, so on the rare occasion I would see a black person my brain said, “that person is black, why am I noticing that does that make me racist, stop that” which is a habit that I still have, to a lesser extent now that I’ve seen more of the world than my hometown, but I hate.

Obviously we need to teach our children about these issues, and I definitely don’t think we should try and instill “colorblindness,” but what could be done differently, in formal schooling or in parenting, especially for kids with very little exposure to diversity, to prevent confused attitudes towards race?