Hello,

It was February six years ago and my son was at the table with his head in one hand while the other pushed his food around with his fork. He wasn’t eating — not a big deal to me then because at 5 years old, he was still very picky and I wasn’t giving in to mac and cheese again. It was a quiet dinner until he spoke.

“Mami… am I Black?”

“What do you mean?”

“Am I Black?”

“No, mijo. You’re Mexican.”

My husband and I looked at each other, very intrigued, but also amused in that kids-say-the-funniest-things kind of way.

“I want to be Black,” he said, almost in tears. 

Now I wasn’t so sure this was funny. Even his sister, normally ready to pounce at the chance to poke fun, could sense the weight of a different sadness. 

“Why?”

“Because everything bad happens to them and I want to fight with them.” 

His face was all pained determination while the rest of us sat stunned. This was a new depth of feeling from him about an issue that broke my heart and now his, but also, I welcomed the hope about the kind of person he might become. 

Choking back my own tears, I said, “Well, you can’t be Black, but you can be an ally and that means sticking up for them especially when they are not there to defend themselves.” My husband and I went on to talk more about allyship using kid-friendly examples.

After they’d gone to bed, we stayed up wondering what might have had him thinking about these things when we hadn’t talked about it yet. And then it dawned on me when I cleaned out his backpack the next morning. It was February. Black History Month. Thanks to this curriculum, we were able to have this important conversation in a meaningful way. Proof, once again, that Black history matters –– all the time. 

Connie Alvarez

Your KCRW Insider since 2001

P.S. Sadness is the other side of joy. Get out there and support and celebrate the events and exhibits that are still running now and beyond February. 

The Anti-Dread Climate Podcast is Back!

Do you have an atmospheric river of anxiety for the future of our planet? Let’s talk about it and see what we can do. Our very own Caleigh and Candice are back for season two of The Anti-Dread Climate Podcast to discuss some of the all-consuming questions we face when it comes to climate change, where we’re at with climate goals, and what we can do about it. In the season premiere, they speak with a licensed eco-therapist about how to cope with your climate anxiety and take care of yourself.

LA County Supes Roll Out Short-Term Rental Regulations

Short-term rental regulations impacting unincorporated areas of LA County are on the voting docket for the LA County Board of Supervisors. The proposed ordinances are trying to bring the county in line with the City of LA, Santa Monica, and other local cities that already have limits on rentals, and help check the ongoing housing crisis in LA County. The focus is on operators who buy multiple homes that are exclusively used as short-term rentals. There are 2,841 short-term rental units and 353 long-term rental units in unincorporated LA County. That’s an unbalanced scale if I ever saw one. I hope this is a step in the right direction for affordable housing.

Second Opinion: Do Grades Motivate Learning?

Report cards originated back in the mid-1800s as a way to control unruly behavior. Since then, they’ve morphed into the common grading systems we know today. Grades are important external motivators for students and impact how we interpret achievement and success. In this Second Opinion, Michael Wilkes discusses the importance of grades and the movement to pass/fail “grading” to reduce stress in education and help drive intrinsically motivated learning. I think I’d rather have a doctor motivated by a desire to learn about medicine than one who excelled at memorizing the filovirus flip cards for the grade.

Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction Examines a Wild Fumble for Creative Freedom 

Writer-director Cord Jefferson’s debut film, American Fiction, stars Jeffrey Wright as a frustrated author and academic who resorts to writing a pseudonymous novel built around particularly egregious Black stereotypes in order to vent. Conceived primarily as a thought experiment to confront majority white publishers with what they claim to want, he’s instead treated to the wildest success of his career and a double life for which he’s quite unprepared. Listen in as Jefferson tells The Treatment how he sees the quest for freedom as a central theme of the film and explores the wild things people are capable of to attain said freedom.

Heartbreak and Divorce: Reflections on Endings, Healing, and Self-discovery

Many of us have probably experienced a breakup, separation, or divorce that resulted in heartbreak. Some of us, multiple times. It’s a common and critical part of our lives that deserves some examination. In Life Examined, Jonathan Bastion speaks with Los Angeles Times staff writer, Todd Martens, about the science of heartbreak. Martens learned from biological anthropologist, Helen Fisher, that loss can be viewed within the framework of addiction. He says, “If I start thinking about this like an addiction, if I start using the language of an addiction, it starts to make me feel like I had a little bit more autonomy over it than I had before.” When you think about it, it makes sense. The loss of a relationship results in something that resembles withdrawal which can lead to undue pain, suffering, and poor decisions.

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– Elaine (Redondo Beach)

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