Talking To Teens: Expert Tips for Parenting Teenagers

Andy: Talk to me about this beautiful book that I just read, This Book is Anti-Racist. We have a really, really amazing colorful illustrated book here that's really got some powerful things to say in it. And what inspired you to write this and what's the story behind it?

Tiffany: There is an interesting story behind This Book is Anti-Racist. So I think it was 2018, 2017, and my editor at the time emailed me out of the blue. And so I'm a teacher in a classroom, not an author at that time. An editor emailed me and was like, "Have you ever thought about writing a children's book?" And it was like, "Not really. But I'm interested." So I met with her and she was in London at the time and so it was through Skype because this was before everybody used Zoom.

And we talked about it and she was following me on Instagram and noticed that I was doing a lot of work in my classroom around the history of racism and resistance and Anti-Racism, and she was like, "There aren't a lot of books like that for young folks and you're doing the work already."

And so I started writing the book and it took me about three-and-a-half months. At the same time, the illustrator Aurélia Durand, who was living in Copenhagen at the time and then Paris, she's going between the two places, she was illustrating. So I would send in a batch and then she would illustrate them. So it happened really quickly. Maybe too fast. No, no, no, it's amazing.

And everything that's in the book as stuff that I had talked about with my own children or with my students that I taught. At the time I was teaching six to nine-year-old's, so younger students. The book is geared for teenagers and so it was fun to be able to give more information because I give more information to teenagers than I do to little kids. And so it just came out of all of the work I'd done as a teacher, from the things I'd learned throughout my life. It was a really awesome ride. It's not a normal author story either.

Andy: That's fair. Well I noticed that actually at Barnes & Noble looking for this thing and finding it in the children's books section and it feels like not a children's book, I guess, as you mentioned. It feels like really it's for teenagers or young adults or something. And the way it's illustrated, it's not cheesy, it's cool. And I think it makes the information really accessible. And it's not just a little couple of words on each page or something, it's a book and it's 150 pages.

Tiffany: Right, yeah.

Andy: I thought that was interesting. I guess they have a youth section, but I don't know it's in there with all these kids books. It was a little misleading to me or something actually, because it's not kid stuff. But anyways, cool, awesome.

Tiffany: So I've noticed too that a lot of bookstores don't really know where to put it, right?

Andy: Yeah, it's a little in the in-between phase or something. Yeah.

Tiffany: Right. And it looks engaging and so they just put it in children's nonfiction because there's not often a YA or a teen nonfiction section. They're like, "Well, teenagers will either read kids books or adult books." And you're like, "Well actually, no. We need to tell it differently for teenagers."

Andy: Well, it's awesome that someone's doing that.

Tiffany: Thank you.

Andy: So let's talk a little bit about this. What does it even mean to be anti-racist?

Tiffany: Yeah, it means a lot of things. For me, it really is looking at the society we're in and how there are a lot of unfair, unjust, inequitable laws and policies and traditions and things that keep us as people in a community totally divided based on kind of created almost imaginary hierarchical system that we've all been brought up into. And so, being anti-racist is working together with as many folks as possible for a more equitable and just world where, look at the school calendar and how all the holidays and things we get off are Christian-based holidays or government holidays and we don't get to honor other cultures and religions and stuff the same way. And so an anti-racist society is one where we honor everybody and schools will be like, "Oh, well this kid, you can take your holiday off, but you have to miss school. But just give us a note."

Andy: Yeah, yeah. Right. Or yeah, you can take a off from work, it just counts as a vacation day. But why doesn't that one count as a vacation day but this one does? I'm like, "Hmm, interesting."

Tiffany: Right. It's not fair.

Andy: That's right.

Tiffany: And this is why I love writing and working with kids, is because they see things so clearly as to what's fair and unfair.

Andy: Yeah, they get it pretty quick. Yeah, you're right.

Tiffany: And they're like-

Andy: "Why do we do that?"

Tiffany: Totally overwhelmed, right. As the adult, you're like, "Oh my gosh, there's a little more to it sometimes." But I love how concrete they are and they force us to pause and break things down even more than maybe we are ready for.

Andy: Can we talk just a little bit about language? I already noticed here on this interview, you're using the word folks and you talk about this in the book, and I thought this was really something that was interesting to me. And I just think that language is so important and I'm really trying to get better at this and using non-gendered pronouns, just referring to people. I noticed myself just relating to just normal random people on the street and saying, "Oh hey, what's up, man?" And catching myself and being like, "Why do I have to use a word that implies a gender when I don't know how someone wants to be referred to or something?"

And I think this is definitely something that's been on my mind just a lot lately is how to refer to just in the most inclusive way. And it's hard for me just to be retraining myself, but this was helpful to me, in the book you have a discussion about this just right at the beginning. And I thought it was interesting the way that you used the word folx with an X.

Tiffany: Yeah. Language is incredibly powerful and we forget how powerful it is. I think a lot of times when colonizers came to the country, one of the first things they did was set up schools for indigenous students to learn not just Christian ways but to also learn the English language or Dutch language, whatever the language of the colonizers. And from doing that, then we lost a lot of language as communities grew or didn't grow, decreased too.

And so for me, I'm always looking at language and how we can shift it to honor as many people as possible. And the beautiful thing is, we as adults have the work of unlearning and re-learning and learning, and the kids in our lives are just learning. And so I think of my own, I have a 11-year-old and a six-year-old, but the 11-year-old right now is so conscious of the language we use. And so the other day I referred to somebody, I can't remember what their name was, but their name was a stereotypical male name and so I referred to them as he.

Andy: Ah, yeah.

Tiffany: And my kiddo was just like, "Mama, you don't know how they identify." And I was like, "You are totally right. And so let's go back and this is how I'll ask the question differently."

Andy: That is so cool.

Tiffany: Yeah. And the thing is, I could have gotten really defensive because I'm like, "Well, this is how I've always done it."

Andy: "You know what I'm trying to say." Yeah.

Tiffany: Exactly, right. Which does come out sometimes.

Andy: Sure.

Tiffany: But instead it was like, "Oh, can you help me figure this out? Can you show me what you've learned in your class or with your own friends?" And it's the thing I also really love about kids is that because they're just learning, they're also really willing to teach us if we're willing.

Andy: Yeah. Oh, they love to do that, to call us out.

Tiffany: Right. And if we're so engaged in that they'll do it more gently than it being this antagonistic thing between us. So language is one of those things that I feel is I have so much to learn about language. I just learned very recently from the fifth graders that I know that they use the word sus instead of suspect. And so they'll be like, "Oh, that's so sus what you just did." And I'm like-

Andy: Yeah, its a little sus.

Tiffany: And so I'm always learning new things. Just the language that I used when I was a teenager and in between, my mom was probably like, "I don't know what you're talking about," too. It was different in the '90s.

Andy: But also, yeah, it takes time I think sometimes for things to trickle through culture. And yeah, I think the conversation is really changing on a lot of this stuff. Where at first, we'd hear people making fun of non-binary pronouns and things like that. And now it's like, "No, you can't make fun of that anymore." Actually, I was just talking to my mom the other day, she's a medical malpractice attorney. She represents doctors and she has her first non-binary clients right now. And then she's having to completely rethink the way she even writes letters because they don't want her to use, not just referring to them, but to any humans.

And so it's like, "Well, normally I would say Mr. So-and-so, and I can't say that and so do I the full name?" And just having to rethink and starting to realize how much of the way that she normally just does everything has these things assumed or built into everything. And I think sometimes it takes time for things like that, to trickle through. And I think it's really getting there with a lot of this stuff where it's pretty mainstream now, we've got to pay attention.

Tiffany: And it's always okay to ask if you don't know. And what I'm working on and what my own children work on is we never assume. We're trying to never assume. And so when you meet somebody, you're like, "Hey, I'm Tiffany, I use she her pronouns. How do you identify?" Just super simple like that. And it's so much easier for the kids to do than us adults who have been taught to just make these assumptions or to say Mr. or Mrs. And you're like, "No, not everybody identifies that way."

Andy: Right, right. But we learn that's polite, that's nice. That's what you're supposed to do, sir, ma'am. "Thank you, sir." and whatever. But actually, it's rethinking those things. Interesting. There is a discussion in your book, you talk about identity in the beginning of the book and how there's so many different facets that make up our identity. And one interesting discussion that you make is about intersectionality, can we talk a little bit about that?

Tiffany: Yeah. Kimberly Crenshaw, who's amazing, really helped us understand it in a more clear way. And it came from the legal work that she did, understand that we all have social identities. And so our social identities, I always describe them, is they're how we relate to other people in society. And we have our personal identities, the things we like, we love, we care about. But our social identities also lump us in groups of people.

And the thing with the social identities too, is they're often these categories that we don't maybe always relate to. They've been created by people over time, through history, government. I always love to use the census as an example of how our understandings of social identities change or not, and how while we might identify as one way, we're not always given the opportunity in society.

Andy: That box doesn't even exist to check on things.

Tiffany: So many of them don't.

Andy: Yeah, your passport has to say male or female or whatever.

Tiffany: Now they do have another category, but that's very recent. 2000 was the first time in the census when you could check more than one box for your racial identity.

Andy: Interesting.

Tiffany: Even though we've had multiracial people forever.

Andy: Since forever actually, yeah.

Tiffany: And then we also mix up race and ethnicity. Those are all different.

Andy: Oh, that's my next question, yeah.

Tiffany: Okay. So we have these social identities and we know that there is also this culture in our society, the dominant culture, where you look at who has made decisions for hundreds of years and it's cisgender, white, Christian men who own property, who are not too old, not too young, different aspects.

Andy: Yeah, neurotypical, you point that one out too.

Tiffany: Neurotypical, exactly. Speak English, are US citizens-

Andy: Working eyes, ears, hands, feet.

Tiffany: Yes, able-bodied, and also their able bodies are also fit. There's all these different things. And anytime you're like, "I'm not sure what you mean by dominant culture." Just look at TV and the magazines in the grocery store and you'll see. Or the government cabinet is not always but more often. And so we have the dominant culture and then outside of that is all the rest of us. You have cisgender women, non-binary folks, trans folks, black folks, indigenous.

Andy: Everybody else.

Tiffany: So many. Muslim folks. Just keeps going on. And intersectionality allows us to see that while we may have... So me as a biracial, cisgender woman, I have some privileges and advantages and I have some disadvantages in the world. And if I'm working alongside a white cisgender woman, she also shares some advantages and disadvantages. However, because maybe she fits more in the dominant culture because she's grew up middle class, maybe she has master's, these different elements that bring us closer to the dominant culture give us more privilege and access to things.

And so intersectionality is really we're in these different roads and we will collide sometimes. But also, our paths are very different and may not even be similar. And for Kimberly Crenshaw to be able to articulate that so clearly, and it was this very specific legal case that she did, but it really helps us as just people in society to understand that many of us have advantages and disadvantages, but different parts of our identities bring more advantage or disadvantage.

And we need to be able to recognize that as a way for us to support and work with each other instead of playing what's called oppression Olympics, where you're like, "Well, I've had it worse because..." And you're like, "Well, this thing in society, actually, oppression is horrible for everybody. And this person has all these things stacked against them while you're a little bit closer to the dominant culture, and your story is different from this persons. But we're looking at laws and policies and traditions and things that have kept some folks oppressed. And maybe you are a little bit closer to the dominant culture and you haven't had as many disadvantages."

Andy: You mentioned race versus ethnicity. That's something that I think would be really interesting to talk about because it's something I even have struggled to understand. I used to write academic papers and we'd always have to report all these things, Hispanic and then also Latin is not the same thing. No, it's not the same thing. But yes, these things are, I think, often grouped into the same categories, but what is the difference?

Tiffany: Yeah, and our government really struggles with that too. When you look at the census and you're like, "I can't figure out how to fill this out, actually." So race is a social construction. And so it was created, the whole hierarchy of race and everything was created by people. It's not this thing you find in the natural world. And race refers to your skin color and your hair texture, maybe your facial features and how you are really similar or different to other people with those same attributes.

While your ethnicity is about more of your ancestors and where your family comes from, it's more about place than just how you look. And definitely where your ancestors and where you're from plays into how you look and your appearance. But ethnicity also includes language and culture and sometimes religion and all of those other things too.

And so I like to use me as an example. So my race is Black biracial. I walk through the world and I'm a black biracial woman, and that's how people see me. But they don't know what my ethnicity is. And so my ethnicity is, I'm African American. My dad grew up as a Black man in this country, African American. My mom is British and French and Irish. And so those are my ethnicities where my ancestors come from. I grew up in a very British upbringing at home, it's a part of our culture, which is a funny thing to say, but there's a lot of cultural British things that we did. And so that's that difference. So for me, to have the race category is to have Asian American and then not allow folks to really tease out their ethnicity because there's so many different-

Andy: That's a broad blanket sweep. Let's just take about a third of the world's population, throw them all in the same bag here.

Tiffany: I know. Or often the question in the United States is about, they always ask, "You're white or black?" And then they're like, "Are you Hispanic or not Hispanic?" And you're like, "Well, there's so many other ethnicities in that." And while you're asking Hispanic or not Hispanic, can we be more specific? Can we allow folks to write Dominican or Puerto Rican or Cuban? Why can we not allow people to share their own identities instead of trying to fit them in these tiny little boxes?

Andy: And it also then really affects how we then interpret the data. My brother was just talking the other day about how Asian applicants to medical school have to score 10 points higher on the MCAT than non-Asian. But that again, to your point, well, that probably is referring to Chinese, Japanese, maybe Korean applicants. But I doubt it refers to Cambodian or Filipino, I don't know. But it's the way we of interpret these numbers is confusing or misleading where we don't get specific or break things down.

Tiffany: Also, why do they have to score more?

Andy: Oh, yeah. Whoa. Because it's just assumed that it's easier for them. Or you point out in the book that it's assumed black folks in medical establishments are assumed to have a higher pain tolerance, and so doctors were like, "Oh no, you're fine." It's a similar effect. It's like, "Oh, if you're Japanese, test-taking is easy for you so you need a higher score to get in." or something.

Tiffany: Oh my gosh. Think about the way stereotypes and generalizations just inform ridiculous policies.

Andy: Yeah, yeah. Right, right. Yeah, that's just baked into so much of everything in our culture, I think though. What is a microaggression?

Tiffany: Ugh, microaggressions stink. So microaggressions, and some folks talk about them as we'll label them as different, but they are little tiny slights almost. I don't want to say tiny, but they're things that are slights and could be something somebody says or the way they act. And it feels small, and maybe you can brush it off but it happens a lot.

And I think in the book, one of the examples I share is people throughout my life being like, "What are you?" And if somebody asked me the question, "What is your ethnic background?" I would feel totally different. But when they ask me what are me, it makes me feel like I'm not a human and they're trying to also figure me out. And I once had a friend, a guy I worked with when I was in my 20s, and I was over at his house and his dad was there, and he was like, "Oh, oh, oh, oh, my dad's really good at this. Let him guess what you are." And I was like, "Are you kidding me?" And he was like, "It's a fun game." And I was like, "No, no, no-"

Andy: It's not a game.

Tiffany: "My race and ethnicity is not a game, okay?"

Andy: It's my life.

Tiffany: "We are not friends. We're not friends anymore." So things like that happen constantly. Or when you're a Black woman or a woman with curly hair and you choose to straighten it and the different comments you get. So my hair is very curly, you can't tell because it's up. But it's very curly. And this past week I straightened it because my kiddos got haircuts and I was like, "I want to do something different, but I don't want to cut my hair." So I straightened it with a flat iron. And I noticed that I was more approachable at the grocery store, people were just talking to me.

This is a grocery store I go to often and they were just talking me. And I couldn't figure out, I was like, "Maybe people are just in a good mood." But I also think maybe my hair, they were like, "Oh, her straight hair makes her more relatable to me as a white person." Or whatever. So just little things like that.

And microaggressions, you don't always notice them when they're happening, but afterwards you feel really awful afterwards. Or you can start questioning yourself. And they build up, they don't go away. And so they just get bigger and bigger. And there's so many different examples of microaggressions, I won't go into them all, but-