Read on Twitter
White parents often react to their kids’ hateful acts w/similar words-thread on why this is so dangerous 1/
“Urbanski’s mother told the judge she was ‘furious’ with her son for engaging with ‘heartless’ ideas but insisted he was not raised to be hateful.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/sean-urbanski-sentence-richard-collins/2021/01/14/70a58ea4-55f6-11eb-a931-5b162d0d033d_story.html
“Urbanski’s mother told the judge she was ‘furious’ with her son for engaging with ‘heartless’ ideas but insisted he was not raised to be hateful.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/sean-urbanski-sentence-richard-collins/2021/01/14/70a58ea4-55f6-11eb-a931-5b162d0d033d_story.html
& how it prevents understanding how radicalization works. After his son was sentenced to death for murdering 9 Black worshippers in Charleston, the Roof’s father told a journalist “I don't know what happened, I just know that the boy wasn't raised that way.” As I wrote 2/
last summer in this op-ed,
“Parents whose children have perpetrated racist or extremist acts often respond with similar words; ‘He didn't learn that from us!’ or "Those aren't our values!’”3/ https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/19/opinions/online-radicalization-risk-pandemic-miller-idriss-united-shades/index.html
“Parents whose children have perpetrated racist or extremist acts often respond with similar words; ‘He didn't learn that from us!’ or "Those aren't our values!’”3/ https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/19/opinions/online-radicalization-risk-pandemic-miller-idriss-united-shades/index.html
“are common refrains. White families may point to raising their children to be ‘colorblind’ with statements that ‘everybody's equal’ without explicit conversations about race as their way of instilling ‘good values.’” But as many others have pointed out- (see eg
4/
4/
this piece about talking to white kids about racism) 5/ https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/health/white-parents-talk-racism-wellness-partner/index.html
and still quoting from my op-ed here, “silence about racism leaves White children to draw their own conclusions about the inequalities they observe or ignore them altogether. Values alone can't always compete with what kids and teens encounter online.” Lots more to say but 6/
if you haven’t read @_Shan_Martinez_ thread about how she was class president, straight A student & an athlete when she radicalized into violent white supremacy, read it now 7/ https://twitter.com/_shan_martinez_/status/1349502185801977857
Prevention & intervention of extremist radicalization requires extensive work with parents & caregivers to help them recognize how radicalization works, what the online world is their kids are exposed to & why silence & “good values” are not enough 8/
@PERIL_AU & @splcenter guide for parents & caregivers is a good place to start. But there are other resources out there too, starting w/ @_Shan_Martinez_ herself who you should hire, fund, give honoraria too for this work, along w/ @NRIS1865 Akiko Cooks 9/ https://www.splcenter.org/PERIL
@WStatesCenter has a second edition of their Confronting White Nationalism in Schools toolkit for educators out now. 10/ https://www.westernstatescenter.org/schools
More discussion for another day. But much to be done to get entire communities- parents, caregivers, teachers, coaches, mental health counselors, more-to recognize they can and must help recognize & respond to radicalization & that there are resources to help /END
