Parents of children of color have to be careful how they dress their children. Dressing a black child in clothing with raccoons, alligators, monkeys, watermelons, or bananas is opening up that child to potential racial taunts and name calling. Dressing a Native American child in clothing with feathers or arrows or an Asian child in pandas is the same.
Parents of white kids don’t have to consider these things.
White friends, please take a look at the resources below to understand why I, many other white adoptive parents, and parents of color will not dress their children with these kinds of graphics. We do not want to open our children up to the possibility of being called horrid, racist names. And yes, it really does happen, and it happens often. I know black people who will not even eat watermelon in public!
Resources:
Racoon -
http://www.authentichistory.com/diversity/african/3-coon/1-history/index.html
http://www.rsdb.org/search/coon
Alligator -
http://www.authentichistory.com/diversity/african/3-coon/7-alligator/index.html
http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/question/may13/index.htm
Monkey (and by association bananas) -
http://www.authentichistory.com/diversity/african/3-coon/6-monkey/index.html
Watermelon -
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/how-watermelons-became-a-racist-trope/383529
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