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News and Press |
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CBS Evening News with Katie Couric Parents MagazineHow do we raise children to respect difference? That was the question asked by Katharine Whittemore in a Parents Magzine article from December 2009 entitled "Raising a Child Who Respects Difference."
In this article, Director of Cambridge Diversity Consulting, Michael Baran, explains that we must talk to children, even young children, about race before they bring it up. There are various strategies for bringing up the topic in an organic way. One excellent way is to download and play the game "Who Am I? Race Awareness Game" onto your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. It's a fun "guess who" type game that you can play with you child. It not only encourages dialogue about race in a fun way, but it also provides appropriate tips for parents on how to actually talk about race and diversity, during the game and beyond. CBS Evening News With Katie CouricOn June 8, 2009, CBS Evening News with Katie Couric ran a story entitled “A Disney First” about Tiana, Disney’s first African American Princess. For this piece, Michelle Miller interviewed Cambridge Diversity Consulting Director, Michael Baran, about one key aspect of the controversy over Tiana. In the interview, Dr. Baran discussed how part of what makes the controversy so heated is because people are arguing whether any of this matters. People say that kids don’t even notice any of these stereotypes (even blatant ones in The Jungle Book and Dumbo); they just love the fantasy and the story. But research shows that even young children are paying attention to cues about race all around them and are using them to construct their knowledge of racial groups. And while of course children do not watch these movies and become white supremacists, if we are serious about really fighting for true equality, one of the things we have to do is pay careful attention to these images that kids watch over and over and that have great emotional impact. Hopefully this new movie with an African-American Princess will have some really positive associations that kids will pick up on. But we need to really pay attention to all the images in the movie, not just the fact that she is Black. And we need to remember that looking at these movies critically is really important when thinking about the long-term direction of how we want our children to grow up. back to topNew York Times
Walt Disney PicturesOn May 29, 2009, the New York Times ran a story on the controversies surrounding the December 2009 release of The Princess and the Frog, which features Disney’s first African American Princess (“Her Prince Has Come. Critics Too”). In this story, the author quotes Cambridge Diversity Consulting Director, Michael Baran, as an expert on anthropological and psychological theories of how children learn about race. Dr. Baran says “People think that kids don’t catch subtle messages about race and gender in movies, but it’s quite the opposite.” In fact, even very young children are actively constructing knowledge about racial and ethnic groups from subtle messages all around them — in language, in actions, in stories, and in movies. Examining these messages carefully is critical if we are to really work towards fundamentally changing the power of race in our society. All too often, diversity training and multicultural education messages of “equality for all” and “celebrating diversity” are undercut by subtle cues that convey the opposite message. Cambridge Diversity Consulting can use engaging examples from popular culture to illustrate complex points about how children and adults learn about and communicate about race in schools and in the workplace. |
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