Some tips for dealing with racism in the community:
For parents:
* Talk about tolerance.
* Identify intolerance when children are exposed to it.
* Challenge intolerance when it comes from your children.
* Support your children when they are victims of intolerance.
* Foster a healthy understanding of group identities.
* Showcase diversity materials in your home.
* Create opportunities for your children to interact with people who are different from them.
* Encourage children to interact with community resources, such as libraries and food banks.
* Be honest about differences.
* Model the behavior you like to see.
Source: Tolerance.org
For teenagers:
* Meet and keep talking with students in different groups.
* Zero in on specific actions and create a project plan.
* Assess your progress.
* Share your experiences with others.
Source: Tolerance.org
For schools:
* Train staff in anti-bias and conflict resolution methods, how to identify and report incidents of harassment and hate, and ways to prevent incidents.
* Teach children about prejudice and discrimination with classroom activities and assemblies.
* Write a hate prevention policy and distribute it to every student, family and employee.
* Take a firm position on incidents of hate and have set guidelines for discipline.
* Create structured opportunities to get students to interact across racial and ethnic lines, including community service and class projects, and peer mentor programs.
Source: U.S. Department of Education
Useful Web sites:
* Tolerance.org, www.tolerance.org
* Anti-Defamation League, www.adl.org
* Partners Against Hate, www.partnersagainsthate.org
* Teaching for Change, www.teachingforchange.org
* Project Implicit (bias tests), https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit
* Study Circles Resource Center, www.studycircles.org
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