The Conscious Kid w/ Ramon Stephens

It's a nonprofit that promotes access to children's books that center on underrepresented groups and authors. Ramone and I talk a lot about having critical conversations about race with your kids at a very young age, and how reading books can be such a great jumping off point. It's just so helpful to like take a look at your own children's libraries, you guys, like, what type of books are you reading to your kids? Is everyone represented in those books?

Are there some authors that are questionable? Ramon and I actually talk a lot about a very very very famous children's book author who you might want to reconsider being part of your children's library. So, oh, a little bit about Ramon because he's brilliant. He's a PhD student at the University of California. His research focuses on recruitment, retention, resilience, and student voices for marginalized populations in the educational spaces. Whoa oh, and he's also an amazing father. So here

we go, guys. Here is my conversation with the one and only Ramon Stevens from The Conscious Kid. Ramon, you're impressive, you're smart, We're very like and you're in the select few of men we have had on Katie's grew no much of appreciate it, much appreciative. I'm still a student learning, so I appreciate that. I appreciate you having me here. It's it's super humbling and I'm so honored. Oh my gosh,

I I I am part of this group. There's millions of us of white moms who are waking up way too late to my white privilege, um and just freaking out and seeing how already systemic racism is prevalent in my household and in my parenting of my child, and just learning these things and your Instagram account, you guys, the Conscious Kid has really been such a tool to me. Tell me why how you started this Instagram account? Yeah. So what's interesting is that of most entrepreneurs, you know,

businesses are started out of personal need. So a partner and I, you know, I'm black, she's Jack. The these my kids, you know, they're obviously mixed. They look very black. So we're looking for books to affirm their identities and affirm who they are. And so we remember going to our local library, which had like tens of thousands of books, and we were like, you know, can you bring us any books that have black children? And she was like, oh,

like I can tell the little be same black. Kind of like alarmed her a little bit, and she had no way of looking up in the computer. There wasn't like a query for it. And she was gone for several hours and then came back with this post and note with three books. One of the books I remember was was a black girl praying together her hair wasn't nappy,

and the other two were equally disempowering, I know. And so and so we're like, you know, maybe maybe this is just this library, right, So we start doing more research and going to the libraries, and then we find out that this is like a national systemic problem. There's a major gap in representation of kids of color, and

particularly black kids. And then even more so, of the book that you can find, most of them are not written by black folks, a little have inaccurate messaging, problematic narratives, and those narratives will be appropriated, which essentially drives income out of the black community. So um as we start talking to other parents in our circles who are also parents of color, were like, you know, how are you doing.

Are you finding books? And they're like, no, we can't find anything, And so we just spend all this time doing research, and we're like, you know, let's just make this a project and start spreading these resources to parents and families and educators about how to get access to these books. But then also start understanding, you know, how do we have these critical conversations about race at a really young age so we can start to push back

against some of this systemic racism. What I'm so impressed by it is that it's like, you guys are vetting these books. Not only do they have characters that are black or mixed, or have different hair, different eyes, different backgrounds, all of these things, but they've been authored by black authors, like do you're you're doing the vetting for us, which is I really appreciate it because I'm trying to help my kid immediately. Sure, sure, yeah. So we teach critical

race media literacy. Um, it's also referred to as critical media literacy. And what that does is that just looks at all the different ways when of how to consume media critically, whether it's books, whether it's school curriculum, and to be honest, it's it's really an orientation of your whole life, right, and at the root of it is critical consciousness. So it's being able to question these systems of inequity, not just in the content but behind the

power structures that created the book itself. Who profit off it's it, who owns it? What are the interests? You know, what characters are being centered? You know, um, where does the money go? So all of these different things kind of going too. Yeah, and and there's because there's there is,

there's all. There's all these books out, but a lot of folks are just kind of throwing out narratives too, I think capitalize financially on these racial conversations, which is terrible because what it does is reproduces like all these racial and equies and understandings of race. So by going through the messaging, looking at the positions of the characters, who centered, who's invisible? UM? Who has the power to tell someone else's story? Right? What is that? How does

that shape the narrative? UM? All of these kind of going into the selection of literature and media and content that that we put up on our Instagram and share with educators and families alike. I love that we just had on Dr Beverly Daniel Tatum. She's amazing. But we talked a lot about how to be critically conscious and how to touch that to your kids. And so what's amazing about your Instagram is like you're looking at these books through like she's talking about a critical lens to

make sure of all of these things. And I feel like if you can help teach yourself to have a critical consciousness and then your children model after you to also think critically, like you said, it applies to so many things. Um okay, And so now we're seeing, thanks to the conscious kid and the work you guys are doing that a lot of these classic books they're just

not great. They're actually extremely problematic, and one in particular that I came across in your work, which I had absolutely no idea about, is Dr SEUs, you and your wife Katie. You guys wrote a groundbreaking research article on it titled the cat is out of the Bag Orientalism, anti blackness, and white supremacy in Dr Seus's children's books. Can you share a little bit about your research cat

is all the way out of the bag on that one? Um? Yeah, So the Doctor SEUs project came specifically out of this narrative when we're talking about starting the Conscious Kid, where we were looking at the books and our kids preschool and I will never forget my first year in my PhD program and they're giving me a tour of the school and there was like this Doctor SEUs statue and they're like listen the Doctor shows. And my friend next to me he goes, man, do you all know about

all the anti Asian Japanese cartoons that came out? I had never heard of it, and I was like wait what? And so I go home. I talked to Katie and I'm like, yo, you know. Dr SEUs was super racist. So we start looking at the cartoons and they were just horrific, using the N word for black people, had him dressed him up like monkeys, had all kind of Japanese slurs. Then there was this narrative that was like, oh, maybe in his life he got better and changed. We're like, okay, well,

let's let's just look at all these books. I'm kind of just curious personally because we all grew up reading it. It's like a staple in every school. We're like, let's see is it really changing, because I don't know if you can really just ship like that overnight. So we went through his entire children's book collection and we coded for and we used all the critical media codes as far as like dominance, power, positionality, who's president, who's being centered? Um,

how are depictions of people of color? What is their position and relationship to the dominant characters or white characters in the books. And we're like, wow, of all the characters, all the black people all look like monkeys or have those caricature faces. And then so they argument was like, okay, it was a hording. Here, here's who was supposed to

be like this apology. But then we're looking at the book and it's got this like bright yellow face with these chopsticks, and we're like, there's still a lot of problematic stereotypes. And then the other one is this is another one of those apologies, is this sneeches where it's like, basically, this a quick synopsis. There's a group people that have stars in their belly in the story, and then there's

another group without stars in their belly. And the people without stars in their belly, you know, they're excluded, they feel sad, um and you kind of get picked on a little bit. Um. But basically the story ends when the group that doesn't have stars in their belly they get stars in their belly and they become happy or like that. That's all kind of enforces a conformity narrative, right, Why why can't those characters just be happy without stars,

happy who they are? Right? You started talking about savior narratives within books and assimilating into these dominant narratives um, and so we're like, that's kind of problematic as well. I don't really know if that's an apology. And so all these patterns just crossed all the literature. But when we dropped all the findings, it was like a bomb went off almost And we're not the first person to

find these things either, like we cited other researchers. Dr Philip Nell, for example, did a lot of work on this. There wasn't anything that was new, but maybe the ways in which that we packed up the whole thing. It was kind of an eye opening for everyone because most of the studies weren't specifically Navy. You know, there's anti blackness, orientalism, all of these things, and and then depiction of women

in the book, right, and their books are subservient. I got the whole Uh Sus cannon for my son's shower and I have not opened them. What's your The feedback on conscious kid to all of these findings are youth saying that we shouldn't read Dr SEUs anymore? Because I am of the opinion that we should not. This is a common debate, right, this idea should we swap it out? Like? Can we still use these books to teach about these things?

The problem with that is that if we're going to teach about racism or marginality, we should probably use a lot better tools and learning from a racist. If I should, I do I want to learn about anti semitism from an anti semi I don't think so. So although we can use these books to teach. There are much better books written by people from those communities that unpack those

issues a lot better with children. The other problem with still using those books is that you can still reify stereotypes and unconscious bias, not knowing that you're doing that as you're using it as a tool, still seeing all those problematic depictions and narratives of people of color and women when there are zero women of color in any

of the books. By the way, all of those things are still sending messages about what matters, who matters um And if you're a young child, your brain is so impressionable that the things that you're exposing children too, you need to be extremely mindful of. So if you want to teach about equity, you want to teach about patriarchy. If you want to teach about racism, go from people in those communities that experience it themselves and have expertise

on it. You've also vetted nursery rhymes that are inherently racist, or like just the worst and like I'm retiring head shoulders, NAIs and toes goodbye, like retired, that song is not to be sung anymore. When you were a kid, do you remember they're not being books for you. And do you remember the first time you read something where you found yourself reflected in the pages? I very vividly remember this. So my my folks were always trying to be pretty

intentional about having like black books in our house. But I knew that once I left that house and went to school, I was not going to be seeing any black people. And I can remember the first time I

saw a black person. I'm not gonna say I saw myself, but it was we were reading Huck Finn in my second grade class, and I think it says the N word like several hundred times, and I was the only black kid in his class, and it was super awkward because the teacher was like, you know, you're not supposed to say it, but just saying it and it was so hard, and I was like, I was because it's written in the book and we don't want to erase this history. And I was not engaged by the story.

I wasn't really even sure how to react to that. I'm like, this kid hasn't talked to me all year. Now he wants to say the INN word out loud during the book when he's reading it, And what a memory, what a visual like all of these kind of American cannon books. Um, that's so much embedded, like white supremacy, and it's so many other problematic things. The first time I'm trying to remember where I actually saw a black person that I related to in a book, probably wasn't

until I got to college, um, and I started reading. Um, Tony Morrison might even the bluestide I can't remember, but it was definitely Tony Morrison where I was able to see myself. Started reading the biography of Malcolm IX saught myself. But it wasn't until I got much older. I didn't see him in the curriculum. I'm not going to see it in any of the books that were even available.

Because we grew up in the nineties, the color blind era, most people aren't even looking about it, and even if you said something, it was like, you know, dragging your nails across the chalkboard, like hash hash. We don't talk about that, you know. I think my parents thought they were doing such a better job than their parents, who were probably vocally horrible, and then they were just let's say nothing and be nice to everybody, is what we're going to teach and everyone's equal. And now I know

that is also obviously not working. Like people know, we've got a lot of work to do. Um. Can you share any of the books that you read with your children to ensure that they saw themselves represented in the narrative? Absolutely. I can remember like a really standout book that made an impact for them when they were younger, and as a book written by Derek Barnes, who's a black author.

And what made his books unique is that he started focusing on black boys in particular, because black boy narratives were just gone absolutely and oftentime, falling their stereotypes of either being some kind of pain narrative you know, they're trying to get out the hood or like yeah, yeah, yeah, all those kind of deficit deficient narratives. And so he

started writing these empowering books. Um. And so one of his books was called Crown, you know, um, and it's it's it's about the power of black barbershops, and it's about this kid that goes and gets his first kind of fresh haircut, right, wants to look fresh. But we remember, like our kids looking at those books and they're like, oh, that's that's my kind of hair. I have hair like that, and I'll look how that's that? What daddy did? We went to get a doughnut and we had all these

similar kind of kind of things. Another one is called yeah called Little Leaders Both Women in Black History, which is great because it's a board book. It has all these different profiles of a lot of black women. You've probably never heard of, these great empowering descriptions written by

this black woman. Um. So that is a great one, especially to entree for young children when talking about issues of So great for us because I feel like I can't do a good job teaching a kid how to be an anti racist if I'm not also learning myself.

I can't. You know, there's so many things I don't know, um, and I'm so behind when it comes to yeah, like powerful black women in history who invented stuff and made stuff and black men like wasn't taught in school, Like I have a lot to do and then to get to show that to my kids. So that's a great idea. Yes, yes, um, we will be learning just as much, I swear as the kids. We were like, oh did you know that?

I didn't know that? I mean I knew that, did I knew that what's cool about books is that everybody learns like a family learning tool, right, And although it is simplified at a nice young age, I swear like, if you are learning about these concepts, the simplicity and the accessibility of the language is actually really helpful for parents. So um, we always say like learning and using books

is actually a group experience. Everybody ends up learning from it. Um. I remember there's a children's book about George Crumb, for example, this black guy that have been at the potato chip? I had no idea, um, and you can amazing though potato chip is my favorite food, right, so the fact that I've never googled who invented the potato chip is ridiculous. The other thing I want to say about the conscious kid and why it's so helpful is that when you go to all the books you guys have to list.

What's great is you've listed what age. I think you're making it so easy for parents to not have to look up if it's age appropriate, to not to be able to trust that the author and the topics and the themes in each book is something that we should be proud to be sharing with our families and our children, is like all of the work. So first, so parents, just get the books, read them to your kids, but

know that that's just a starting point. There's a lot of action that has to take place after the books. Books are such a great way to learn collectively, as you said, but are there any other entry points to having these critical conversations about race with our kids. It could be a children's book and be that starting point. It could be a simple something that they see in their everyday experiences that you related to UM, and then

you build on it later. I don't expect going to be critical race theorists overnight at age three, right, But kind of one particular example is UM. A lot of parents are talking about, like how do I talk to my kids about these protests and everything going on. So I was talking to my five year old son, UM. He was asking questions about what was going on, and so,

you know, I just basically had this conversation. I said, you know what, you know, a long time ago, you know, there were some people that put a lot of unfair policies and laws in place that are still around and not treating black people and people of color fairly in this country. And people are outside protesting because they want to see a change, um. And so just kind of breaking it down really simple like that. He immediately got it,

he understood it. There's this misnomer that if you talk to race about a child like to you know, like you're going to traumatize them or or scare them. But kids, kids are actually very intelligent. They understand what's going on. And the funny thing is that kids are very much similar to adults, right, They were very similar as far as the way that we learned things using stories, using narratives, UM,

experiences in their everyday life that you can relate to. UM. These are all things that are useful when we're talking about kind of racing our experiences. The thing that I think is, so I'm trying to think of not as a scary thing but like an empowering thing that rather than my kid getting it elsewhere, well, it's already happening. I mean, the racism is there, like it's there, so I have to get in there, you know what I mean. I have to get in there, you know, in the

developmentally appropriate way. But it's very helpful to me to hear how parents are having these conversations so that I can practice and figure out how I'm going to not be color silent, right, just getting that conversation where we can at least talk about issues of race, and then using that as a starting point. Everybody obviously learns differently. Some learn about it quicker, some become more passionate than others.

But once you have that starting point, you can build on that for life and by the time there our age, they'll be sweeping us under the rug. Oh your lips to God's ears, like please, I hope that is the case. Since you've started the Instagram account, I feel like there's even more going on. Can you explain how that transition has sort of happened and do you feel like your mission has even changed? Absolutely? So we start off, you know, with the children's book focus, but we do have a

lot of experience. People are fifteen years experience in this work, and so we know that a lot of these issues are embedded structurally within the laws and the policies and norms. So we've expanded just from doing children's books to doing research, policy, advocacy, rent relate basically, you know, a critical anti racist space online all the different ways that it can look. Children's books are just a starting point, right when we talk about how do we raise anti racist children, how do

we raise children with critical consciousness? When you're doing this inequity where you have to come out of from multiple different angles, right and at the very very least, it's like lifestyle shift. Right. The conversations you're having with your child matter, but it's also about very much about what you're doing. Who are you surrounding yourself with. Do you live in a segregated neighborhood, you go to a segregated school.

What kind of people are your children being exposed to on a daily basis, What kind of media messages are they coming through their household? All these different things right shape the ways in which we understand and interact with the world. UM. And so as the Conscious kid Is mission has grown, it's just become more holistic and addressing advocating for policy change through the National Education Association where they decentered suits and are now supporting diverse books. Right.

That's a structural shift, UM. But it's also in the training for like organizations and companies that are learning how to um not just donate money, but what's going on in our culture and our policies that may be inequitable that we just never looked at, right, so um growing into that piece supporting families and schools, and then of course making sure that we're supporting youth directly through social media.

So it's really just grown to be more holistic and look at inequity from multi different points that we can try and push back and resist against. But I'm sure it's just going to continue to grow as the demand increases. Oh my gosh, you guys have so many followers, but I feel like your followers are very active on your Instagram, Like there's a lot of commenting and like back and forth conversations, and so I find like it's really become

this awesome sense of community. And as much as social media can drive people insane, it also can really be this incredible right now, especially this source of where me as a white mom, I'm going to unlearn so much shit you brought up curriculum before. I want to circle back. So as I've been discovering and talking to my white friends family members about like Black Wall Street, I've never heard about any of this, And then you start to think, oh,

what else didn't I learn in school? I really don't know a lot about slavery at all. I really don't um, And honestly, it wasn't until I worked on Scandal and one weekend we were all shooting in d C. And we all took a tour of the African American Museum and we were there for hours and hours and hours, and I, I have to say again embarrassingly, So that was my first like really deep dive into knowing a

lot historically about slavery. Um. Since you work so closely with schools and things, what can we do about the curriculum and the school Like? Wow, what are we supposed to do to teach our kids the true history and the truth of why America is America? Yeah? I mean, curriculum is is such a deep issue because of how much it really does shape your child's understanding of the world, the ways in which they see themselves and other groups.

So the work that we've been doing in ethnic studies basically looks at centering histories and stories of marginal communities and putting that in our textbooks and using those as kind of reference points. But it's also borrows from this notion of what's referred to as culturally relevant pedagogy, where it builds basically three things. Right. It's cultural competence, it's

critical consciousness, and then it's also academic rigor. So we're using stories and narratives from people that we see in our everyday lives that we can relate to, that we can understand, right, but we're also talking about them critically, right, and we're going to also talk about it um and learn about the cultural shared aspects of that person, meaning like, how does this person relate to or push back against

dominant norms? And those norms could be segregation, those norms could be, um, no black people at your office, right, It could be a number of things. But I think studies looks at these stories of people that we've never heard of that made significant contributions to American history. People of color, we're talking about women, we're talking about Jews, We're talking about all these marginal groups that are left out of the histories books that make up most of

our classrooms, and reflecting those stories. So when we have empowering narrative with diverse folks, right, it's great for everybody because the folks that that are from those communities can see themselves in the text, but the folks that are outside of those communities now get ay, it could be their first entree even into that community, be and be they get an empowering narrative and more accurate narrative. What that looks like when we can get those stories from

those communities. So this has got to happen. I know, I know, there's like a slight there's a slight movement that's gone on in California and Arizona, and I think in New York. It's popping up in a lot of different states. But the other benefit is that kids actually do really academically as well, because they're more engaged in the content because it relates to it. So and the cool thing about cultural realm and pedagogy. We can do it with math, we could do it with science, we

can do with English. Here's an example. So there was a science class in um in Oakland, and so before what they would do is they would test like the waters of their ponds outside, you know, just test for like lead levels. But instead the teachers are employing culturally reallyant pedagogy, and they tested the water in the schools and they found all kind of lead levels. They took those lead levels back to the comp back to their local legislator and was able to advocate for reform and

get new pipe things. Um. And then students were able to also take those skills and started applying it to their neighborhoods. Right there was some of these high income schools.

They would, you know, make fun of these kids for being poor, being low income and saying they're dirty, they're nasty with these kids did as they took the skills about how to document things, about starting with the problem first and researching backwards, and began filming how often the garbage man was coming, and it was coming like three times less than any other neighborhood. Took that back to

their legislator was able to advocate. So when students were able to basically see how the content in school actually can be used in their real life, people become more engaged because they understand how it actually works. Right, Like I love George Washington that cherry tree, but I don't know how that's gonna help me police outside, you know what I'm saying, right, Or like, for example, I feel like I learned so much about World War Two in school.

I've been talking about this and I'm like, well, of course I did. It's like yeay America. We were part of the Allies and we fought the evil Nazis who were like the bad guys, and all of our movies for like the Last like Forever and Yeah, and like we came in and saved the day. It's like such an easy sort of story to digest because like we were the white heroes and like we came in and

made the world right again. But if I were to look back on what I was taught about slavery or the civil rights movement, or the Vietnam War, or like anything where we're on the wrong side, it was completely not detailed, not specific, It was quick, it was like a little paragraph. It just wasn't great, And I don't want that for my child, right, And it's also an unbalanced education. School shouldn't be just about helping people get jobs.

It should be about making you a better person in life, right, understanding the world better and from there you can figure out how you want to contribute economically or what that looks like from those needs. But having those narratives of these different stories, right, this is what creates empathy with folks so they can relate and understand. And we also know that when kids take these like classes with diversity

and equity. It changes their future decision making processes. That's like one of the biggest findings that it changes the way you make choices about everything. So when you're beginning to question things and like, maybe this isn't a good idea for me, maybe I am perpetuating something harmful. How can I reframing and look at this from a different way.

That's when we are our list, my agency, and we're able to kind of disrupt these systems, because then it starts to become like I said, that lifestyle, right, you can't really turn it, you can't go back, you can't and you shouldn't. Um. I just don't think until we're

able to really look at our curriculum. Honestly, I can remember I've been to Berlin a bunch of times, and when I go to the s S Headquarters museum, it's filled with German first graders looking at absolutely horrible images of what their country did two people and did to Jewish people. And I'm like, yeah, but like that's what we need to be doing, like yes to slavery, and we need to be looking at everything and vibrantly. So, UM, do you think that will ever happen in our public schools.

That's a good question. Um, So this is what I think will happen based off of what has happened before. We have these moments, these really strong moment us of reform. We might have we were able to disrupt or have the shifts. But like with every great progression, there's a digression. So we had Obama and then we got the massive white lash, right, So with every great social justice reformed, there's a massive lashback. Like ethnic studies came out in

the nineteen sixties, it's like fifty years ago. But then the eighties happened in Ronald Reagan and color blindness. That pretty much just sniped out the whole ethnic studies movement because people thought it was just like a bunch of hand holding and it wasn't really relevant because we don't talk about race, so why do we need to have a whole class about it. Now we're starting to come

back around to it. So if we can keep this momentum going, there will be changed depending on the location you are in, because there are just some states that are gonna be a little bit more pro ethnic studies, and there are some states that want to hold lot of those problematic um, kind of classic heroes that have you know, done a lot of horrific things. So we have a lot to work to do. And I can't

thank you enough Ramon for coming on the podcast. In closing, I just want to bring attention to the incredible COVID relief that the Conscious Kid is doing. I think it's a quarter of a million dollars. What have you donated thus far to Black families? There's been over yeah, over a quarter of a million dollars um. And then we've also did relief for general families as well prior to COVID, and I think that was well over a quarter million as well. I want to stay close to half a

million to be honest. Um. COVID really looks at how race intersects with class to create additional layers of marginalization. When we're talking about, for example, black mothers in particular, you've got gender, you've got class, and you've got race all intersecting, and so we know that that creates heightened need for resources. And so that's why in particularly we chose to focus on black families who have been marginalized

through COVID nineteen. That's amazing your work is absolutely incredible. I can't thank you enough for The Conscious Kid. For everybody listening who's a parent out there is such a resource. And we're all on our phones, we are all on Instagram. People don't pretend like you're not. And what's great is it's important. It's amazing and it's also positive and like wonderful because you give us a lot of action items. So instead of just sitting there feeling like I don't

know what to do. I don't know what to do, We'll go to The Conscious Kid and start with those books and reading. Um, thank you so much for coming on Katie's Crib Ramon. You are awesome. Thank you Katie. We appreciate it and keep doing the work you're doing because you said a great example and you are modeling for your young childs about you know, allies that are trying to do work. So I appreciate you and thank you for having us. Uh yeah, big pleasure. Thank you

guys so much for listening to Katie's Crib. Please rate, review, subscribe to the podcast, tell your friends, tell your family. Oh, if you have a topic or a guest that you would like to have on the podcast, send me an email at Katie's Crib at Shonda land dot com. Katie's Grim is a production of Shonda Land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. You can never know

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