Race Consciousness Via Baby Board Books.

As we were perusing the board books, I came across one (I can't remember the exact title, I can't find it on Amazon, and it's driving me crazy because I was reading it a couple of hours ago) entitled something along the lines of Our Beautiful Children. It was a book about black kids, and every page highlighted an attractive physical attribute of a whatever black child(ren) was (were) on that particular page. Then, every third page or so, there was the sentence "I am unique; I am beautiful," or something very close. Each page included beautiful sensory language, along with many educational similes and metaphors which were used to describe the various features of the children. 

I was left uncomfortable, however, that a toddler book was emphasizing racial characteristics as a means of identifying something positive. The children in the book were unique, according to the author, because they were black, or because of some physical quality associated with the author's vision of blackness. Physical characteristics were the only items emphasized. I'm not sure how helpful it is to create race-conscious toddlers, and I'm firmly against teaching kids (let alone babies) that individuals should be defined by physical characteristics. This is one book among many, true, but this is a baby book for crying out loud, and it was one of the board books on display. Teaching kids to take pride in physical characteristics that are stereotypically (although typically accurate) assigned to a racial group is insidious and damaging at worst, and an empty feel-good message at best. I'm not against taking pride in one's appearance as it pertains to one's own effort or sense of self-respect (pride in a new suit that one saved up to buy, pride in physique due to healthy eating and exercise). Don't misunderstand me: every person deserves to look at themselves in the mirror and be comfortable with the idiosyncrasies they've been endowed with from birth. But to derive one's value from physical characteristics? 

I'm half Mexican combined with an assortment of Caucasion flavorings, and growing up, I usually identified myself as Mexican.

I derive very little if any of my value as a human from my ethnic background. I could have been born to any number of parents with any number of cultural, ethnic, and national backgrounds, and thank God that I am free to form my worth as a person outside of any racial, cultural, or physical confines.

I had no control over being born to a Mexican father and a Caucasian mother. The shade of my skin, the hue of my eyes, the texture of my hair (all of which were emphasized in the children's book in question) have absolutely nothing to do with the person I am, and I would find it offensive if someone presumed to form an opinion about my value as human being based on any of those or other physical characteristics over which I have no control. I am a product of my choices. I control how I act, how I work, how I treat others, what I accomplish--these are the things that should be emphasized, because these are the sorts of things we as individuals can change. The physical traits with which we are endowed have little bearing on our value as humans, and to teach, or even insinuate to toddlers that such might be the case is unfortunate, and inaccurate. Ultimately,it teaches an objectification of human beings. We are humans. We are not inert pieces of art, or prizes meant to be treasured based on transient standards of beauty. To teach that personal value is associated with the physical is to play the flip side of a losing game employed by racists throughout history.

The content of an individual's character was nowhere to be found in the book, and I find it perverted that the physical attributes as a source of value would even be mentioned to youngsters--let alone without juxtaposing the physical alongside that which creates true value among humans.