Since April's riots, Greater Cincinnati has searched its collective soul for ways to improve race relations.

        Commissions have been formed. A program to give teens summer jobs was launched. Ministers have even held special prayer meetings.

Alexia Mays (left) and Imani Glover, both 1 1/2, play at Alphabet Kids Childcare, Forest Park. (Glenn Hartong photos) | ZOOM |

        But some experts contend more open and honest conversations about race relations around the kitchen table between parents and children are key to changing hearts.

        And the sooner those conversations unfold, the better.

        “You have to start early. You have to start in elementary school,” says Dr. Melanie Killen, a University of Maryland professor and expert in the social and moral development of children. “If you wait until high school, they're already sitting at different tables.”

        It sounds so simple. Certainly, common sense says experts' advice to preach racial tolerance at a young age is the right thing to do. But that does not mean it is easy — or that it happens, Tristate parents and children say.

        “You have to get the message to kids before they get out into the streets,” says Robert Embry of Springdale. He is a 57-year-old African-American father of two Princeton City School students.

        “Once they reach junior high and high school their minds begin to get warped from peer pressure, television and music. Then it becomes harder and harder to talk to them and get that message through.”

        Dr. Terrence Poole, a 42-year-old Amberley Village dentist, agrees these chats are never easy.

        “But it's something you have to do for their sakes.”

        With a daughter in Cincinnati's Kilgour Elementary and a son at Cincinnati Country Day, Dr. Poole acknowledged waiting until kindergarten is almost too late to begin talking racial differences with kids.

        “You have to brace them for prejudice, because if you don't and then race is suddenly thrown up in their face, they won't know how to respond,” he says. “We have to teach our kids how to deal with it in a civil, nonviolent, non-provoking manner.

Kenzel Gilliam (from left), Jessica Chapman, Martina Jones and Jennifer Steward attend Walnut Hills, where many students self-segregate. | ZOOM |

        “If someone is calling you names on the playground or on the sporting field, kids need to know you don't just haul off and hit them.”
       

Tough conversations

        Children may recognize differences in skin color when they are infants, research shows. But they generally do not attach racial stereotypes until late in elementary school or when they reach middle school.

        However, by the time children reach age 8, they may start exhibiting a slight preference for their own race. It is from age 8 through 12, studies show, that children are most ripe for developing certain racial prejudices.

        It is critical that parents at that time make race relations a frequent topic, some experts say. For there to be greater understanding between African-Americans and whites, the subject is just as critical as premarital sex, drugs and alcohol, says a national author.

        “We talk to our kids about sex before they're pregnant, and we talk to them about drugs before they mainline because we understand these are choices they have to make, and we want to talk with them first,” says Caryl Stern-LaRosa, chief operating officer of the Anti-Defamation League. “The same is true with hate.

        “With hate, they have choices to make. We don't enter the world with a predisposition toward hating. We learn it. If we learn it, we can unlearn it. And for the grown-ups in the world, we can make a conscious decision our children never learn it,” says Ms. Stern-LaRosa, co-author of Hate Hurts: How Children Learn and Unlearn Prejudice.

        Those pull-no-punches conversations can make sons and daughters squirm, but they can “counteract some of the negativity they might hear in school,” says James Ewers of Middletown.

        He is director of Multicultural Affairs at Miami University's Middletown campus. He and his wife have three children, ages 18-21.

        “When you have those conversations and kids are exposed to racism, they can say, "no,' because they already know that it is not OK,” Mr. Ewers says.
       

Discovering differences

        Researchers have spent years observing children in various settings “discover” differences between races. It is this time in day-care centers, preschools and high schools that convince them how important it is for parents to initiative conversations about the topic.

RESOURCES

• American Jewish Committee: Offers diversity program and workshops for teachers and students. Information: (513) 621-4020.     • The National Conference for Community and Justice: Offers diversity programs. Information: (513) 381-4660.     • Southern Poverty Law Center: www.splcenter.org/teachtolerance

        In Cincinnati, two settings — a suburban child-care center and the city's most diverse high school — offer a glimpse into how race relations unfold as children grow.

        In teacher Vicky Bates' classroom at the Alphabet Kids Child Care Center in Forest Park, children — white and African-American kids — spend most of their time playing together.

        “You could be a blue dinosaur, and they'd play together,” says Ms. Bates, 20, of Mount Airy. “There's no tug of war down racial lines. There's no, "I don't want to play with you because you're different.' It's more, "Gimme that toy.'”

        Proving the point, 4-year-old Ciara Cheatham studies her 6-year-old playmate, Tyler Koenig, and ticks off the differences she sees between them.

        “We don't have the same ears,” Ciara says.

        “I like mashed potatoes,” Tyler counters. Ciara wrinkles her nose.

        Tyler's hair is yellow, she adds, while hers is brown.

        Several other differences are noted before the kids point out their skin color does not match.

        At such an early age, kids are curious about the world and each other. Spotting differences between the races is not instinctive at a young age, says Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race.

        She recounts a time a white child asked her preschool son if his skin was brown because he drank chocolate milk.

        “It wasn't a malicious question,” says Dr. Tatum. “It was an honest attempt to try and understand the differences.”

        Because black children are in the minority, they encounter questions and stereotypes more often than white children, researchers say. They tend to develop a racial identity earlier.
       

High school changes

        Racial differences are more sharply focused by high school. It's apparent, experts say, that something happens to kids who exchange building blocks and dinosaurs for book bags and high school class schedules.

        At Walnut Hills High School, for instance, it is common for white students and their African-American peers to sit at separate tables in the cafeteria.

        Few cross race lines during lunch at the school of about 2,000 students. Of that enrollment, about 60 percent are white and 33 percent are African-American, making it one of the most diverse schools in the Tristate.

        “You hang with people who know what you're going through and who you can be yourself around,” says Martina Jones, a 16-year-old sophomore. “Individually we all get along with white people, but when you are around white people, you feel like you have to try to relate to them more.”

        Martina eats with the same group of black, teen-age girls every day, she says, mostly because they have a lot in common.

        Jessica Chapman, a 15-year-old sophomore, says race plays a role in where she chooses to sit.

        “I feel like when I'm around (white students), I have to prove that I'm this way or that I'm that way. That I'm intelligent, and I'm not some thug,” she says.

        At a table, five white students chat over Cheetos and cookies. One boy, John Biery, 13, says it's coincidental that blacks and whites typically sit with members of the same race.

        “We all sit with our friends, but that doesn't make us racists,” he says.

"Who am I?'

        Most adolescents — regardless of color — struggle with questions of identity.

        Who am I? What do I hope to be? How do I fit in?

        Add race to the mix, and the questions become even more difficult.

        “For black teens, this is most often when they have to decide: What does it mean to me to be black and how important is it for me to be black?” says Angela Neal-Barnett, a professor of psychology at Kent State University. “At this stage, what becomes important for black teens is: How do other blacks see me?”

        This is where “acting white” comes into play for black teens. For some, defining what it means to be black translates into not being friends with whites.

        Those inclinations are reinforced in other ways.

        Researchers say, for instance, African-American teens often feel people cross the street to avoid them. Their feelings of alienation transfer to a preference to hang out with people who can relate.

        “When you're a black 7-year-old, people might think you're cute,” Dr. Tatum says. “When you're a 14-year-old and 6 feet tall, it may be a different story. You find yourself more drawn to people who look like you.”

        Still, Dr. Tatum says, take racism out of the equation, and teens play together just like toddlers, without regard for race.

        “It's not biologically ingrained for us to separate in that way,” she says. “It's socialization.”

Parents' role

        Parents play a vital role — either positive or negative — in modeling behavior and attitudes about skin color.

        When a mother squeezes the hand of her child a little tighter when an African-American man is spotted, that shows a child whom to fear, says Mrs. Stern-LaRosa of the Anti-Defamation League.

        When a father laughs at a joke on TV that's racist, anti-homosexual or sexist, it signals approval to treat minorities and others that way, she says.

        For Cincinnati to change race relations, it must reach out to its future leaders, experts like Mrs. Stern-LaRosa say. Racial tolerance programs should target young children when their minds and hearts are still forming opinions about their world.

        At Cincinnati Public Schools, the curriculum does not mandate a lesson on race relations, but it requires teachers to discuss “citizenship” traits — respect, fairness and justice.

        “Those qualities will make our children better equipped to deal with conversations about race, prejudice and slurs,” says Barbara Christensen, curriculum manager for pre-K to 12th grade social studies.

        “We can talk about how bad racism is. But if we don't give them the tools to be good citizens, then we're not doing our job.”

        “Doing our job” is a responsibility taken seriously by Alex and Judy Hardin of Pleasant Ridge. Diversity is a topic that could not be avoided with their children. Mr. Hardin, 49, is African-American; Mrs. Hardin, 46, is white.

        “It's important to talk to kids as soon as they are hitting the world and starting school,” Mrs. Hardin says. “You don't want them starting school with any preconceived notions or prejudices. You live with everybody. You go to school with everybody. You work with everybody.”

        Uncomfortable or not, those race-related conversations must happen, Mrs. Hardin says — for the child and their community.

        “We've got to remember,” she says, “our kids are the ones that are going to be growing up and running the world soon.”

Teaching kids about race

        To break down racial barriers, it is important for parents to begin discussing race relations with children at an early age, experts say. Here are tips on how to accomplish that:

        • Read books to kids that include people of color. Books with only white characters can make African-American children feel like they don't belong. White children also are not exposed to other cultures.

        • Don't use negative words to describe people of any race, even your own.

        • Talk with your kids about race. Don't wait until they ask or encounter a racist situation.

        • Be honest when they ask questions. Explain why one child's skin is white and another's is black.

        • Don't “shush” them when they point out differences. That teaches that difference is wrong or something not to discuss. Instead, use the situation as an opportunity to talk about race.

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