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"Daddy Why Am I Brown?"Joy lives in a diverse world and comes from a multicultural family. It is only natural for her to have some questions. Join Joy as she learns how to describe skin color, and about how her skin color can tell her about where her family is from, but not really about who they are.
“Daddy Why Am I Brown?” is meant to be a starter conversation on how kids can learn to talk about skin color in a way that is kind, thoughtful, and healthy. And in the process, they learn a little bit about how to understand the difference between race, ethnicity, and culture. |
Meet Joy!
She's got some questions!
About The Book
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I wrote “Daddy Why Am I Brown?” after a conversation with my wife about the difficulty of teaching children about skin color. Teachers and parents sometimes have a hard time explaining things like why people have different skin colors, and what that difference means. As a licensed psychologist and professor who focuses on social justice and culture, I thought that I might be able to help provide some language and context that would allow our kids, families, and educators to better navigate these conversations.
There are many wonderful children’s books that send the message of having pride in your skin, your hair, your family and your heritage. “Daddy Why Am I Brown?” is a conversation about why we have the beautiful diverse skin that we all do. Through this book, I hope to model how to talk about skin color without making comparisons to consumables like food, building understanding of the link between skin color and the geography of our ancestors, and begin the process of understanding of why skin color is not a valid approach to understanding who we are to each other. |
For Teachers
One of the reasons that “Daddy Why Am I Brown?” was written was to provide an instructional aid to teachers. I wanted to support you in having healthy conversations with your students about skin color. So, I talked to one of my friends and colleagues, Dr. Raina León and asked her to prepare a curriculum that could be adapted for kindergarteners and first graders. We have provided six lesson plans that we hope will help in this process. Please come back and share how it goes!
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