H eadlines
Workshop Informs on Teaching Kids About Race
L OCA L
SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
WHEN A PASSENGER on
an airplane gets ready for
takeoff, they are reminded by
the flight attendant that, in case
of an emergency, they secure
their own oxygen masks before
helping their children.

Imani Chapman and Franny
Silverman, equity educators,
advocates, collaborators (and
Jewish parents), argue that
this same idea can be used for
teaching children about racism.

For children to learn about
race and racism, first the parents
must be interested in learning
about racism themselves.

Chapman and Silverman
spoke about parental respon-
sibility to educate children on
race and racism on June 9 as
the second part of the “Looking
Within for Communal Change:
Racial Justice Workshop Series,”
hosted by the Jewish Federation
of Greater Philadelphia’s Center
City Kehillah and jkidphilly.

The two educators apply
the Jewish principle of Elu
v’elu (both/and) to teaching
their children about racism,
advocating for viewing an issue
from multiple perspectives.

With that foundation, both
understanding and teaching
racism can be done through
the lens of the “Four I’s of
Oppression:” ideological, insti-
tutional, interpersonal and
internalized, from the abstract
ideas society teaches us about
race, to the thoughts we have
about race and racism within.

Though Chapman and
Silverman have 50 years of
educating and consulting
between them, it was clear that
the experiences of raising their
own children guided their work
the most.

One day, Silverman recounted,
her 8-year-old daughter marched
around the house with a
flyswatter in her hands, chanting,
“Black lives matter,” mirroring
the behavior of protesters, though
some would argue she was too
young to understand the nuances
of the movement.

“That’s how ideologies work,”
Chapman said. “We start doing
it before we understand it.”
To Chapman and Silverman,
those instances underscore the
necessity of holding conversa-
tions with children early on.

For white Jewish children,
Silverman said, explaining
antisemitism can be a
jumping-off point for discussing
oppression and discrimination
more broadly.

Silverman explained to her
daughter that just how “some
Franny Silverman (left) and Imani
Chapman at a work retreat
Courtesy of Franny Silverman
people have the idea that Jewish
people run the world” (which,
Silverman clarifies to her
daughter, is “bonkers”), some
individuals feel the same way
about people of color.

“In the world,” Silverman
said to her daughter, “there are
people that think that people
have different skin colors that
actually has to do with like,
what kind of people they are?
If they’re good people; if they’re
bad people; if they’re smart
people; if they’re dangerous
people; if they’re safe people.

That’s bonkers!” Silverman said.

“That’s totally bonkers.”
Chapman, a Caribbean-
American immigrant raising
three Jewish children with her
wife, teaches race-consciousness
differently than Silverman, who,
along with her child, is white.

She’s responsible for not
only instilling a sense of aware-
ness and consciousness of
racism in her children, but also
teaching them to have a positive
self-concept, particularly in her
7-year-old daughter.

“One of the ways I do that is I
really surround her with a lot of
heroes,” she said.

But even children of color
See Race, Page 23
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JUNE 17, 2021
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