NewsTalk: Talking to kids about racism

Pastor James Richardson talks about the best way to approach discussions about racism with children.

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Newschannel two's katrina smith sat down with pastor james richardson at multicultural church "kingdom harvest" in rome to talk about how ((parents(( can start that conversation.

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None pastor james richardson 1:35 you have to be aware, you certainly have to be sensitive.

Depending on the age of the trial,... but by asking questions and feeling out and finding out what they think, asking what do you think, what do you think about that and give them time to process.

It's important to reach our children because they are the future.

Katrina - as a pastor of a multicultural church, you are dealing with different races and of course a conversation with a white family will be different from a conversation with a black family and different ages as well ..

As a white family, we didnt have a conversation of how to deal with police in the intance you are pulled over, it was just the rules of the road, but that conversation might be a little different if you are growing up in a black family.

Pastor - an execellent point.

The dynamics are different pertaining to the background.

And we know the times in which we live.

We know it is important to have that type of conversation with our children bc this is something they will experience and something they will face as a black family.

And these are the obstacles we have to hurdle over.

So the instruction is very important that we give them as children.

And as a white family you're not going through the same experiences or the same tupe of problems so it is the character and the nature of the sitation.

Katrina - so how do you explain what happened to george floyd pastor- very carefully, very cautiously.

You have to be very sensitive because such a gruesome and horrendous act, which now has been shown and exposed over and over on television, so to see that, it's very hard to process even as an adult.

So it is very important to be sensitive and to do it in a manner that will help them to understand that what was done, was totally wrong.

This is not the way that the whole embodiment of the police.

This is not everybody, it is one individual's act.

And so you have to deal with it and break it down and certainly again to the ability of the child to process at the age.

Teenagers go through a ray of emotions.

Anger, unbelief, shock, and then anger can turn into hate, so you want to be careful not to move onto the dark side.

Because what happened to george floyd should not happen to any human being.

Katrina - and you have an interesting perspective as well.

Your son is a rome police officer, so he is dealing with both sides of this and sort of a dual role in all of this.

Coming up at six we will talk about that dual role, as a police officer and a black person in the community and also what to say about rioting in the aftermath of the death of george floyd.

T that's coming up at six.

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