A Parent's Response to Dealing with Racial Reactivity

Therapist in the Field

I needed a break. It just seemed that life was lifing too much lately and taking some necessary self care seemed more than necessary. As an adult, a steady stream of naps and opportunities to step away seemed like the ideal prescription to general fatigue. Our family was away for a week.

It seemed the week would be relatively calm, but my daughter came to us on the first day to report that some random kid stated audibly that he didn’t like black people. My daughter knew that he was referring to her. My initial impulse is to let kids handle issues between other children on their own. I took exception to the comment because as a parent, there must be something that we can do to undo bigotry.

DYAD with KID

Assessing myself as the black parent and therapist, I quickly fell into a paralysis of navigating my own reactivity while processing my daughter’s psychological safety. Our racial identities are always being. reshaped and deeply contextual. How was my daughter’s experience shaping her? How was I carrying the information and modeling an appropriate response? How was I creating a space for her to feel heard, while advocating for her needs? How was I feeling about the event? It was jarring and immediately shifted me into a flight response. How quickly could I get away from my own vacation and vulnerability?

Reactivity

I approached the boy and told him that I would like to speak to his parents. He then stated that I was making him “uncomfortable”. I felt terrible and great at the same time. According to Dr. Kenneth Hardy, famed family therapist and author of “Racial Trauma”, my own racial reactivity and the subsequent defensiveness by the young man I approached were a part of our shared and tragic engagement.

The clinician most wanted a way to hold the actions accountable. I acknowledge that our class differences made it possible for the young man to separate himself from any perceived reaction or retribution. I was seething with understanding and the familiarity of the limits of my access and power to change an untenable situation.

Overcoming Racial Reactivity and Defensiveness

My daughter eventually got to play on the field and we subsequently sat with several of the staff to debrief the encounter. We sat through meetings with the Haitian teen leader, and Dominican manager concerned with our wellbeing and counsel. Both conceded their own limits, even as I noted that perhaps we were all bound and bonded by ancestral similarity. The shared knowing seemed like enough, but my mojito didn’t taste the same after the encounter. I embraced my own subjugation and the privilege I sat in to relay my daughter’s harm despitemy feeling of powerlessness. We filed a report, spoke openly with our daughter about the encounter and processed the threat as well as how we would respond in the future. We completed a process.

The clinician acknowledged the journey. The dad in me was happy to find community with others. The black man solemnly noted that a reprieve from hostility was not one of the things I could even afford to be relieved from for even a short time.