When Representation Matters

I’ll never forget holding Eliza in my lap one night reading her books with a singing competition on tv in the background.  As a Black female contestant started to sing, Eliza paused what she was doing and sat entranced. I watched Eliza staring at the young woman, and the same thought kept coming to mind, “It’s true. Representation matters.”
 
I am only three years deep in this journey of finding role models who look like my children for my children. As I mentioned before, Eliza notices every single time there is a little girl who shares her skin tone and her beautiful curly hair. This past week, we were reading a book and she innocently asked me, “Where’s me?” In this particular book, there wasn’t a girl who mirrored Eliza’s reflection. It hit me in my gut. Every book we read, she is looking for herself.
 
Isn’t that what we all do? I loved to read as a kid and teenager. In every single book I read, I always pictured myself as one of the characters. We all want to be the heroin. The kid who makes good decisions. The kid who goes on the adventure. The kid who saves the day.
 
Yet for my beautiful Black daughter, she is already realizing that often the world won’t give her the heroine role. All too often, the world doesn’t give little Black girls and boys roles at all.  My son and my daughter will have to forge their own roles in the stories they read and play.
 
Before we ever had kids, I remember my husband and I starting to talk about the truth that representation matters. We had moved from a predominantly diverse area of Houston, to an area of Texas that had an obvious majority of white people living and attending the school we were at. Sadly, it took me until that point in my life to start to recognize what People of Color have been stating for years. Representation matters. 

• It matters when you sit down in a church only to realize their entire pastoral staff is white. Will they be able to understand or deeply care about the pain that my family faces?
• It matters when you walk down the sidewalk and have to search through crowds to see a Person of Color. Will my kids feel comfortable living in an area where they will be noticed every time we walk outside as someone who looks different than all the rest?
• It matters when the city’s nightly news primarily highlights white leaders as the positive influences and Black people as perpetrators.  Will people in this city assume the worst about my husband and our children before they ever speak a word to them?
• It matters when you are in a conversation about diversity only to see all of the people at the table are white. No matter how big of an ally I might be, to have a table of white people deciding how to move forward with diversity and inclusion misses the point entirely.

 
Representation matters.  But here’s the lesson that I took way too long to realize through all this. Not only does it matter for POC, but it also matters for white America. 

• It matters that white children are attending churches where they see POC as influential and godly voices on Scripture. 
• It matters that white children walk through a school where they can celebrate and follow peers who walk in different skin tones and cultures. 
• It matters that white children are raised to respect and expect leaders of different ethnicities and cultural identities to serve in roles of authority at schools, churches, and in the government. 

 
Representation matters.
 
Here are some action steps that Aaron and I have taken in the past and are continuing to take now to better ensure that our children are raised with the understanding and the focus that representation matters.
 
1. We started becoming deliberate in bringing diversity into our collection of books, tv shows movies, toys etc... do we see POC represented as the primary lead? Are those characters portrayed in a positive light? 
 
2. We are extremely purposeful with who we follow on social media and the podcasts/sermons we listen to. (This has been especially huge for me personally.) I’ve started following a lot of pastors and authors of Color. I have learned tremendously just by seeing what they post, what they recommend, what they perceive. This has helped me recognize systematic racism and prejudice in our everyday life.  Brian Lorritts, Jackie Hill Perry, Preston Perry, Eugene Cho, Dr. Tony Evans, Latasha Morrison, and Jemar Tisby are a few of the individuals I would recommend following.
 
3. We are purposeful with having a diverse friend and acquaintance group. Obviously, we all have our friends that we’ve known forever, but moving forward are we getting to know people who look different than us? We’ve been reminded how huge this is- especially for our kids to see us being friends with different ethnicities and races. This will help them separate the stereotypes that they mostly see on tv with real people they have laughed with, seen their parents go deep with, and have had in their home. This will help children and parents alike to believe the stories of POC and hear the daily occurrences of racism that still happens. 
         
Let’s push towards the world that our children’s aptitudes are not determined by their race. Let’s push toward the world where success is not an expectation of the privileged and a surprise for those who aren’t. When representation matters, each child meets an older version of themselves which gives life to dreams beyond what they have seen.
 
Representation matters. In our society. In our churches. In our homes. Let’s write stories for our sons and daughters where each and every child has an important role. Let’s move to the world that reflects the story of equality that God wrote for each of us.