Over the weekend, the New York Times ran an op-ed titled “Can My Children Be Friends With White People?” in which author Ekow N. Yankah seems to have given up the prospect of letting his children of color truly and wholly be friends with white people throughout their childhood and as adults.
Based on his account, Yankah, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York City (one of the most diverse cities in the country), feels that the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016, the marching of white supremacists in Charlottesville in August, and the heap of Trump “allies” and “apologists” defending his every move, have made it nearly impossible for him to let his children do as they please. He does say that his children can befriend white people who “have marched in protest, rushed to airports to protest the president’s travel ban, people who have shared the risks required by strength and decency.”
Even though a parent has a say in who their children should and should not be around with, completely eliminating a group of people that your children should be friends with based on their race and internal biases only further propagates the echo chamber that so many Americans on both sides of the aisle have already insulated themselves in. Protecting your children from something only makes them more susceptible to know what that something is and expose themselves to it. It’s the “Adam and Eve forbidden fruit” effect. Imposing your political insecurities onto your children is not only bad parenting but is bad for the communities you claim to be a part of and for society as a whole.
Yankah does bring up a good point that “Real friendship is impossible without the ability to trust others, without knowing that your well-being is important to them.” However, he should know that not everyone is as engaged in politics as we are in the media.
Given recent elections, most people living in the U.S. are apathetic to politics. Only 55 percent of eligible voters cast their ballot in the 2016 election, while approximately 43 percent of all Americans voted. That’s not to say that everyone who didn’t vote doesn’t care about politics. There are people who can’t vote for a number of reasons. But it’s racist against white people to cast the election of Donald Trump as a sign that all white people cannot be trusted.
While I am not a parent, I commend Yankah for doing everything to keep his boys safe. In today’s age, where selfishness and immaturity in a lot of parents lead to broken homes where children have to struggle in unstable environments, that’s hard to come by. However, what’s the cost? There will be unintended consequences. And I’m afraid that his approach to satisfy his own insecurities is a bit too selfish and will only stunt the social development of his children. If Yankah is one of many parents who believe this, our society runs the risk of even further regressing.
You should let your children be friends with people no matter who they are, where they come from, what skin color they have, what God they pray to (or don’t pray to), or their politics, so long as they have their best interests in mind. That should be the cornerstone of any true and real friendship.
