In the May 2006 issue of Parents magazine, there is an article called “Let’s Talk About Race.” The author, Lisa Armstrong, gives seven ways that you can help teach positive race relations.

1. Acknowledge differences.
2. Be a positive role model.
3. Talk about bigotry.
4. Encourage empathy.
5. Expose your child to diversity.
6. Foster a strong sense of identity.
7. Don’t tolerate prejudice of any kind.

I thought this article was great. (You’ll be able to see the full article online around May 15th at Parents.com.) First, it is in a magazine that reaches a wide variety of people and, second, it’s just an interesting topic that a lot of people tiptoe around. We have to talk about it because it doesn’t go away by itself.

As the parent of a Korean adoptee, you will come face to face to face with racism. More importantly, your child is going to come face to face with racism and you won’t always be there. In my opinion, the best thing you can do is arm your child with as much information as possible.

There are so many teaching tools out there to teach diversity. Though we are Korean, a good way to teach about racism is to explore all races (numbers 1, 3, 5). I think that it is important for everyone to realize that there are so many different dimensions to the world.

• Visit an African-American/Black-American Historical Museum.
• Talk about Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream…” speech.
• Is there a Korean-American organization near you? Muslin-American? Polish-American?...
• Talk about how Japanese-Americans were rounded up into camps during WWII.
• Explain the KKK and Nazi organizations.

Learning about other cultures helped me to understand racism as a whole. It also taught me to respect other races. I knew what it was like to have people make racist remarks towards me and I was not going to participate and make racist remarks towards another group.

I think that parents have to approach this topic carefully and according to their own child. For me, the knowledge was important. I have a tendency to feel safer when I have lots of information to draw from. However, I can see how other children would become worried by too much information. The goal wouldn’t be to scare anyone…it would be to educate.