Renee Christie and Amy, all 4-year-...

Renee Christie and Amy, all 4-year-olds in preschool began discussing the color of their arms. Renee who was white, told a teacher's aide that the other girls--one white, the other biracial--"are the same color." The aide said she was right, and noted that Renee was darker.

Renee expected upset. She asked, "Does that mean I'm not white anymore?" Laughing, the aide said, "No, silly, it means you are getting a tan."

"I'm darker, on the other hand I'm still white," Renee informed Christie and Amy. And, pair weeks later, she told a black 4-year-old, "Well, I'm just getting a tan. I'm really a white person"

The ends show that children understand the part race has in determining status, power and superintend write sociologists Debra Van Ausdale of Syracuse University and Joe Feagin of the University of Florida in their novel book, "The First R: to what degree Children Learn Race and Racism."

The work documents the experiences and interactions of Asian, white, black, Latino, Middle Eastern and biracial children Van Ausdale observ in a preschool

Just as grown-up continue prejudices under wraps in public, children are frequently smart enough to hide their race knowledge from well-meaning adults, the authors write.

The authors also observ children racially harassing others. A white-and-Asian child formerly moved her cot during nap time, saying she did not want to repose next to a "nigger." Teachers and parents at the preschool were in disbelief and began to blame themselves.

still all the children were "part of ever-larger social circles and networks--and were thus part of the larger racialized society of which we are all members," the authors write. "Racism intersects with their lives in a rush of elaborate, blatant, and artful ways."

"The First R" is published by dint of Rowman & Littlefield in strange York City.

recently made known data showing that blacks were over-represent in the country's criminal justice method in 2001 have spurred a lawmaker from Chicago's southern Side to seek support for a public hearing. According to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, blacks made up 12 percent of the nation's population, if it be not that 31 percent of those forward probation, 41 percent of those onward parole and 46 percent of those incarcerated. State Sen Donne E Trotter said he room for expectations the hearing will lead to reforms in physic sentencing laws. In January, The Chicago Reporter institute that, in six years, 63000 defendants were convicted of put drugs into possession or delivery charges in garble County; 46 percent of convicted blacks were sentenc to prison, compared with 30 percent of Latinos and 20 percent of whites.

An arbitrator has upheld outcomes electing a vocal critic of the Chicago Housing Authority as president of the Cabrini-Green local advisory council, the development's resident leadership assemblage In March, The Chicago Reporter revealed that, during the January election, a voters were each given sum of two units ballots, and other ballots were wasted The private company hired to hasten the election determined Carol Steele won 261-214 Incumbent Cora Moore filed a lawsuit challenging the be deriveds but a judge dismissed the charges. The CHA then asked for an arbitrator, who conclud the managements followed state election law and the springs should stand.

The Japanese American Citizens League, the Leadership talk on Civil Rights and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee sent notes demanding the dismissal of U Civil Rights Commissioner Peter N Kirsanow after he hinted the liberties of Arab Americans might have to be sacrificed, according to a new article in The Chicago Shimpo, a Japanese American newspaper. "If there's another terrorist attack and if it's from a certain ethnic community or certain ethnicities that the terrorists are from, you can forget civil rights," Kirsanow said at a commission hearing in Detroit this summer He added that paying extra attention to Arab Americans will help obstruct attacks as well as the kind of sentiments that in 1944 inspired the predominant Court to rule it was legal to intern Japanese Americans.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Community Renewal Society

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