What does Blackness mean to you? My Black is colorful, quick-witted, dynamic, innovative and brilliant. My Blackness meant I grew up getting my hair straightened with a hot comb that would burn the tops of my ears if I didn't quickly and effectively hold my ears down. It meant my mom had a personal deep fryer and would make me catfish and french fries for breakfast before I went to school. At the same time, she taught me about classical music, how to ski and expanded my worldview in a way that moved far past the South Side of Chicago. My aunt told me about our historical excellence and instilled in me the importance of learning about the amazing things that our ancestors had done. She showed me that my path in life was destined to follow theirs, and that I deserved greatness. For me, Blackness has always been expansive and multifaceted; it has never fit inside a box, stereotype or uncultured idea.
Unfortunately, this is not the case for some children, especially children who are in their early years of identity development. They hear the word Black and immediately make harmful associations with the word and color. In Nursery and Kindergarten, they associate mud, dirt and poop with the word Black. Students rarely name it as a favorite color, and only reserve its use for bad guys and bad things. This creates a barrier to seeing the many facets of Blackness and creates a foundational, negative association with the color. This association directly affects the way that children begin to think about race and identity. In order to combat negative associations and give Black children a chance to build a strong sense of self, we must create early childhood school environments where we can explore and build positive racial identity.
Knowing that racial identity is formed within the early years of a child’s development, I am actively working to combat the role of anti-Blackness in our work. Affinity groups are one way this can be done, as they offer a safe and connected community where children can see mirrors of themselves and their families. The dedicated and purposeful work that happens within affinity groups is not done in a silo. However, it is only one facet of the work that must occur within an early childhood educational environment that successfully helps students develop their Black identity. Teachers, administrators, caregivers, staff and other students all come together to create space for Black children to evolve in their identities. They do this through exploration, community building and celebration.
Exploring Identity
When I initially asked Black children within my school, “What does being Black mean to you?” They answered with confusion, some stating that they did not know, others stating that they are not Black and that they are “just a person.” Others focused on the idea of just being and spoke about liking to play with friends, having fun and being kind. Many of them were able to talk about their parents or friends being Black, seemingly distancing themselves from the idea of Blackness.
With my Black Kindergarten students, we read the book “Honeysmoke” and then created a list of words that might describe our skin colors. Often, children begin holding negative associations with the colors black and brown and favorable associations with beige, peach and white. We continued working on this list, asking students to expand their ideas and think about other things that “make us feel happy.” With this prompt, they begin associating words like caramel, sunshine, honey, strong, and coffee with black and brown, slowly building their way toward discovering, naming their own skin colors and taking a step toward understanding what Black means to them. With each step, they learn more about their identity and bring in questions that help to facilitate our exploration. This exploration continues in their home environment and allows for curiosity to thrive.
Early in this work, parents began sharing what they noticed at home around their children’s identity development. They noted the positive changes and their pride in being Black:
My child has struggled a little with completely loving their skin. We have often heard how they really want white skin... Well, the other day I was rubbing lotion on their legs like I usually do. I started to do my usual ‘oh we have to keep your skin nice and beautiful’ and out of the blue, they responded with ‘it already is beautiful!!!!’ I was so happy that I could cry. Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.
My child is so excited about her lunches with Ms. Lauren and looks forward to it every week. She is acutely aware of being one of only two black children in her class. She came home the other day and reported that she was the only black child in her extended day class. She shared that it makes her feel sad. I am so grateful that you are creating this environment where our kids are supported, their racial and ethnic identities are celebrated, and they can develop a sense of belonging and community. So important! Thank you!
Each of these stories validated the need for identity-focused work in the early years and encouraged us to create more spaces for our children. From creating a theme song full of affirmations to having the children star in their own music video, we made sure to find additional ways to celebrate Blackness.
Celebrating and Building Community
In an act of visibility, we centered our Black faculty and staff and created “The Black Joy Project,” where Black faculty, staff and administrators expressed what Black joy meant to us. I showed it to all six of my second grade classrooms, and all my students—white and students of color—were thrilled to watch it. After watching the video, the children reported feeling “proud,” “ecstatic,” “safe and comfortable,” “awesometastic,” and “sad that Black people don't always feel safe,” and one child reported that the video was “profound.”
Eventually, other community members became aware of our early childhood identity work and asked to participate. The Black Student’s Association is composed of Black high school students at Lab’s High School. In partnership with their advisors, I had some of these Black high school students visit my first-graders. They introduced themselves, played games, colored and connected over hairstyles. Seeing teenagers smiling and laughing while engaging with young kids filled our hallways with joy. After they returned to their campus, I asked them to reflect on what their visit was like and this was part of their response:
"Yo, can you imagine what now would be like for us if we had had that then?" "When we were at the early childhood campus, they split us into twos so that each class could look more diverse. At one point, one kid was the only Black student in his class." If only they had had more Black teachers, counselors, and staff members; if only Blackspace had existed then.”
These kids understand the importance of creating an environment where children can be their whole selves, learn about their identity and fully embrace their Blackness. More importantly, they can viscerally understand the consequences of what happens if positivity around the beauty of Blackness is not nurtured, cultivated, and amplified.
Black Futures
Afrofuturism reimagines Black history through art, music and cultural practices, acknowledging the past, present and future of Blackness. It combines science fiction, African mythology and social and political liberation to create visions of a more empowering and joyful future for Black people. This is the future that I imagine for my Black students—a future where they can exist in their Blackness uniquely and unapologetically.
Earlier, I spoke about how Black children within my PWI responded when I initially asked them, “What does being Black mean to you?” After years of exposure to early childhood curriculum and pedagogy, this is how our Black children discussed their Blackness at the end of their first grade school year:
“It means that I can be whatever I want. I am brave, I am passionate about myself and I love being Black. Because Black is beautiful and powerful.”
“Being Black means that we have more chances, that we are strong and Black people can do anything they want to do!”
Seeing my Black students develop a positive sense of identity brings me immense joy. Their words fill me up with light and make me smile in ways that make my cheeks hurt. I see them in the hallways, and as they run toward me, their excitement validates my existence, and their tight hugs make it all real.
As intensely as I feel joy for this identity work, I also feel pain. I do this work for the Black children in my school, and still, I face many challenges. The work is not easy and is quite labor-intensive. I often think about balance, making sure that I am taking care of myself while simultaneously taking care of so many others. It is all a labor of love — an enormous amount of time is put into designing the curriculum, examining pedagogy and making sure that we remain culturally responsive. At the end of the day, the risk of burnout is real.
There is also fear that emerges when discussing racial identity with young children. Although I can discuss all of the ways that affirming Blackness is necessary within the early childhood setting, this is something that is under threat, and there are many spaces where doing this work is not allowed. I often find myself wondering, what is the future of Black spaces when we find ourselves in anti-Black times?
All things considered, I remain committed to this work as my students remind me every day that it is necessary and that I have no choice. I’m looking toward the future and standing strong so that more Black children can have positive developments around their multi-faceted Blackness and identity, as a whole. As one of my beautifully melanated Black students said, “Being Black means I have beautiful skin, no one else is like me, I’m perfect the way I am, and we can change the world.”
