(The Slice): Lesson #1 for safety and survival for Black children is no longer " don't talk to strangers but don't talk to police." Due to high profile police killings of primarily young Black people, primarily Black parents are required to have "The Talk" with their kids. It is a potentially life-saving discussion that teaches children do's and don'ts in the face of racism. As Pres. Joe Biden pointed out in the 2023 State of the Union Address, Black and Brown parents must have a different conversation with their children than White parents: “As many of you personally know, there’s no words to describe the heartache or grief of losing a child. But imagine — imagine if you lost that child at the hands of the law. Imagine having to worry whether your son or daughter came home from walking down the street or playing in the park or just driving a car.
Most of us in here have never had to have ‘the talk’ — ‘the talk’ — that brown and Black parents have had to have with their children."
Biden brought The Talk up when he was acknowledging the lilling of Tyre Nichols whose parents were guests of First Lady Jill Biden.
NIchols was 29 when he was assaulted by a gang of police, but the age for this lesson is getting younger.
Alicia D. Williams opens this conversation in a new format that gives parents and caregivers a resource to having The Talk with their kids. Told in an age-appropriate fashion, with a perfect pause for parents to insert their own discussions with their children to accompany prompting illustrations, The Talk, is a gently honest and sensitive starting point for this far-too-necessary conversation, geated toward Black children and others who need it.
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