Every Parent Should Know What Tyler Perry Is Doing

I’m old enough to receive AARP magazine, and even so old that I read it.

They just did an interesting interview with filmmaker Tyler Perry.

I haven’t seen many of his movies, but I know they’re really popular with a wide swath of the audience, so he seems to have his finger on the pulse of the people.

In the story, Perry talks about his 7-year old son, Aman, and how he is NOT having the “race conversation” with him.

The race conversation being something so obvious, apparently, that you have to explain not having it.

“I don’t want to tell him that there are people who will judge him because of the color of his skin, because right now he’s in a school with every race, and these kids are in their purest form…

“When he describes his friends, he never defines them by race. So the moment he loses that innocence is going to be a very, very sad day for me.”

Notice he doesn’t say *if* he loses it. Sooner or later, Aman will become aware of race. But Tyler Perry isn’t going to hasten that moment, or teach paranoia, inferiority or victimhood.

I love what Tyler Perry says here, and what he’s doing for Aman.

When we are kids, we figure things out, sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly.

But I think racism, or race-sensitivity is more likely to be taught, spread intentionally, then it is to be arrived at logically.

Let’s not make our kids live our own childhood’s reality, or carry our past burdens, real as they may have been.

Give them a chance at their own future.

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