Being Nice

The other day, I was speaking to Mae about hanging out with kids in the neighborhood.  I told her if I ever say anything that she feels is racist or insensitive to the kids, I would like her to point it out to me.  While I was telling her this, she said, “but mom you are always nice to everyone.”  I have seen this whole ‘nice doesn’t equal racist‘ thing going around on social media and really resonate with it.  While as a mom to my daughter’s friends, I am nice, that doesn’t mean I won’t say something thoughtless and end up saying something that is racist.  I went on to tell my daughter that even though I try to be nice to everyone who I meet, especially kids, I may say something that I think is kind but in the end it is in fact racist.  This is where we need to continually evaluate our white privilege in everyday settings.  In order to have change happen we need to have people in our lives that can point out when (not if) we say something that is thoughtless and speak out on it.