relatively higher levels of education were more likely to send racial socialization messages of cultural pride, and coping with racial discrimination, and encouragement of intergroup interaction (Brown, Tanner-Smith, Lesane-Brown, & Ezell, 2007). Compared to their non-married counterparts, married fathers engage in more frequent racial socialization (Thornton, Chatters, Taylor, & Allen, 1990). Parents are more likely to transmit racial socialization messages to older children because older children are more apt to understand racism in abstract ways, and report experiencing it (McHale et al., 2006). However, the content of racial socialization messages is just as important to the degree to which parents racially socialize.
Murray and Mandara (2002) explain four different approaches to racial socialization: the proactive approach refers to parents who initiate the act of discussing race, but also, teaching children to deal with racial issues; the active approach happens when parents openly discuss issues of race and discrimination; the reactive approach, occurs when parents take a defensive position on racial issues or discuss racial issues after cases of racial discrimination arise; and the passive approach describes when parents never talk about racial issues. Murray and Mandara (2002) investigated the racial socialization messages received by one hundred sixteen 14- to 16-year-old African American youth and found that they had experienced varying degrees of four basic racial socialization messages. Race empowerment messages stressed ←49 | 50→having a positive racial identity and being able to overcome obstacles in life despite racism. Racial awareness messages actively taught children to be proud of being Black. Race-defensiveness includes messages to children that they should dislike another racial group. It also involves teaching children the usefulness of imitating White behavior. Race naiveite minimizes race, saying that racism is a thing of the past or a minimal issue in the modern era (Murray & Mandara, 2002). Those who were exposed to the race empowerment approach were high in racial identity and self-esteem. The reverse was found for those who were exposed to race-defensiveness messages. According to Murray and Mandara (2002), high self-esteem for Black youth is acquired through recognizing Black achievements, having effective strategies to deal with racism, and having a feeling of belonging to and responsibility toward communities of people of African descent. Race naiveite and racial awareness were not found to significantly predict high self-esteem and only moderately predicted racial identity (Murray & Mandara, 2002).
Cooper, Smalls-Glover, Neblett, Banks, and Levant (2015) investigated racial socialization patterns among African American fathers and used the results of their investigation to develop profiles of Black fathers’ approaches to racial socialization. To assess fathers’ racial socialization practices they used the Racial Socialization Questionnaire–Parent Version, which measures racial socialization across six dimensions: racial pride (telling children they should be proud to be Black); racial barrier socialization (making children aware that they will face racial discrimination and teaching them to effectively cope with it); egalitarian views (telling children that they should treat everyone equally); behavioral socialization (exposing children to Black culture); negative values (sending children negative messages about what it means to be Black); and self-development (sending children messages that they must be self-disciplined to be successful. They discovered five profiles: (1) infrequent racial socializers; (2) negative racial socializers; (3) positive racial socializers; (4) low race salience socializers, and; (5) race salient socializers (Cooper et al., 2015).
Infrequent racial socializers are those Black fathers who have low levels of racial socialization. Negative racial socializers include fathers who are low in the self-development messages they send, but high in the negative messages they send. Positive racial socializers are fathers who are high on all dimensions of racial socialization, except negative values. Low race salience socializers are those who are high on all messages except self-development. These fathers didn’t overtly address racial barriers or encourage racial pride, but they did send moderate messages about personal development and racial equality, seeming to focus on individual assets of the child. Race salience socializers are those fathers who score high on racial pride, barrier orientation, egalitarian, and behavioral messages. However, this group was also found to have a high frequency of negative messages (Cooper et al., 2015).
In general, the Black fathers who participated in the study were above average in all dimensions of racial socialization except negative-value messages. Cooper et al. (2015) found that parents of boys were less likely to talk about race; parents of girls are more likely to engage in racial socialization. It is important to note that some Black fathers indicate a reluctance to engage in racial socialization because they think it may lead their children to believe that: they cannot achieve what they want, that they are victims, that they have a reason to fail (Coles, 2009). Others believe that their Blackness is a given and therefore doesn’t need to be discussed (Coles, 2009). However, racial socialization has been linked to more positive racial identity and less depression (Stevenson, Reed, Bodison, & Bishop, 1997). When parents proactively discuss race and racism with their children, the children do better academically, socially, and emotionally compared to children whose parents avoid the subject (Brewster et al., 2014, p. 97). As a cautionary note, African Americans must be aware that racism has the power to erode even protective factors like racial identity and racial socialization when it is not sufficiently supported and reinforced.
Brewster et al. (2014) discuss how most African Americans engage in one of five racial socialization practices. One, preparation for bias is a racial socialization practice that between two-thirds and 90% ←50 | 51→of African American parents engage in. These parents make their children aware of racism and prepare them with strategies for how to handle it. They may engage in telling their sons to “be on time, to avoid wearing sagging pants or hoodies, and to work extra hard” (Brewster et al., 2014, p. 97). However, what Black children are taught about racism may vary. They need to know that racism is more than individual acts and be aware of institutional racism. Two, the egalitarian approach is one that more than two-thirds of Black parents practice by telling their children that everybody is equal, everyone is the same, and that color doesn’t matter. Middle-class and affluent Black parents in particular deliver messages like this. Three, cultural socialization involves messages consistent with the African worldview, such as the idea that self-knowledge is the basis of all knowledge. About one-third of African Americans send these messages. These parents teach their children to know their heritage, cultural values and traditions, and to have ethnic pride. They may do so by taking their children to cultural performances, having cultural symbols in their homes, and even giving their children ethnic names. Cultural socialization balances out what is lacking in a simple awareness of racism. Four, promoting mistrust is a socialization practice that only 3% of Black parents engage in. This involves telling their children that they can’t trust other racial groups (i.e., you can’t trust Whites). Five, silence about race is an approach not many Black parents take. Black children in this scenario are left unarmed to deal with stereotypes and negative treatment based on race. Relative to Black parents’ racial socialization of Black girls, racial socialization messages to Black boys concentrate more on strategies for self-regulating behaviors and defusing racial encounters (Bentley, Adams, & Stevenson, 2009). Black boys undergoing early physical maturation may prompt their parents to initiate conversations about how to manage possible racially charged encounters without sustaining physical or mental harm, because they are at heightened risk for violent racial encounters (Bentley et al., 2009).
There is much that the parents of Black youth can and often do to prevent racism from leading to depression. African Americans can prevent the harmful effects of racism on their children by exposing them to Black history and culture, teaching them how to interact appropriately with other racial groups, and instructing them on how to respond to racist situations and oppression in general. Without this kind of racial/ethnic socialization, Black children remain excessively vulnerable to the harmful effects of racism. Bynum, Burton, Best, and Nagayama Hall (2007) discovered that racial socialization messages reduced the stress that can accompany experiences of racism. To raise psychologically and emotionally healthy children, African American parents cannot afford taking the color-blind approach. Social science suggests that African American parents protect the psychological well-being of their children through early racial/cultural socialization. Failure to do so leaves Black children more vulnerable to the psychological
