Early childhood development research has shown that both institutional racism and interpersonal experiences of discrimination can influence the health and well-being of children in multiple ways, including reducing access to material resources and services that promote long-term health and development and acting as a psychosocial stressor that can lead to worse outcomes over time.
As such, we believe that the same attention given to the effects of poverty in early childhood development should be given to the effects of racism as well.
Wealth (not income) is the means to security in America. It is what enables us to buy homes in safer neighborhoods with better-funded schools. It is what allows us to send our children to college without saddling them with hefty debt. The wealth disparity in America is a marker of the impact of racism. In American history, Black families were legally prohibited from generating wealth for hundreds of years, drawing a direct link between poverty and racism.
Generations of segregation have enabled disinvestment in Black communities. Home devaluation, underfunded school systems, and even the disproportionate disposal of toxic waste in Black communities are all factors contributing to substandard environments that have harmful effects on the development of children who live there and that perpetuate the disparities that stem from racism.
At RACCEE, we believe in the need for robust, policy-informing research that acknowledges racism at the center of trends like the ones outlined above. Embracing anti-racism in the early childhood development research agenda is the way forward, the way to fully understand and address the disparities in outcomes for minoritized children that stem from racism.
“Speaking like this doesn’t mean that we’re anti-white, but it does mean we’re anti-exploitation, we’re anti-degradation, we’re anti-oppression.”
— Malcolm X, Civil Rights Activist