Podcast addresses the mixed-race majority of the newest generation
by Beth Waltemath | Presbyterian News Service
Editions of the second season of the “Around the Table” podcast are now available.
“Gen Alpha and the children born after 2010 will really be the first generation with a majority of racially and ethnically identities,” said the Rev. Michelle Thomas Bush, co-host of the PC(USA)’s Around the Table podcast.
The podcast focuses on hard conversation in its second season. The newest episode addresses mixed race families with Nicole Doyley, Doyley has been published in “The Witness: a Black Christian Collective” and “Huffington Post.” She authored three books and hosts her own podcast, “Let’s Talk: Conversations on Race with Nicole Doyley.” She has a new book for parents on fostering identity with mixed-race children. The book’s publication is possible through a partnership between the Around the Table initiative and the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Around the Table is a Lilly Endowment Inc. funded initiative in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that engages faith communities and parents and caregivers in innovative practices of sharing stories that grow intergenerational communities to support household faith formation.
The podcast episode and Doyley’s upcoming book focused on families and communities that support the social and spiritual formation of children from families made multiracial either through interracial marriage or transracial adoption. Doyley shared insights as a mother and as someone who grew up multiracial and discusses how the social landscape has and has not changed for children who span two or more cultural identities as they navigate homogenous spaces and build friendships with monocultural peers.
“When it comes to being a different race from your child,” Doyley said a parent can’t simply look back to their own childhood for answers. “We realize that our children are moving through life very differently, and so they’re experiencing life very differently from what we did,” said Doyley, who attributed the need to “reach out for wisdom and guidance” as a motivation for writing the book. Churches are communities where parents have reached out for wisdom in guiding a child through their search for identity, belonging and purpose, but according to Doyley, churches are behind the times on being multicultural.
“If you have transracially adopted kids or mixed-race kids, you’re more likely to want a church that is diverse,” said Doyley, who described the common scenario of going to a majority white church and realizing there is no one in the pews that looks like one’s spouse or no one in the youth group who looks like one’s kid. “Most churches, unfortunately in America, are homogeneous,” she said pointing out that to be multicultural churches must be diverse in membership and in leadership. “Churches like that are very few and far between,” said Doyley, who urged churches to catch up the multicultural reality of the newest generations like Gen Z, which identifies as 49% mixed race or Gen Alpha, which registers as more than half claiming two or more racial identities. “Most families are really not one or the other,” said Doyley.
“We know in the church that that’s one of the biggest questions our young people ask, is, who am I?” said Thomas Bush as she opened a longer discussion on how communities of faith can help youth in their youth groups understand the beauty of multiple identities. For parents and adults who oversee identity formation, Doyley advised being brave in initiating conversation. She compared conversations about race to those about sex. “Kids will learn stuff, and they’ll talk about this on the streets and the streets aren’t as safe as home,” said Doyley, who warned that if you shy away from hard conversations, “kids will learn about race in ways that we don’t agree with” or ways that doesn’t honor the fullness of their heritages.
Each episode of the Around the Table podcast ends by asking their guest for practical advice to share when families or communities gather. As part of her advice, Doyley addressed the common scenario of a birthday party and how unconscious cultural racism is present for kids who look differently than the rest of the group. “Kids are not colorblind,” said Doyley, “so I think for parents to realize, to help their kids from toddler age on up, to see how the different is ‘different is not bad,’ and to be comfortable with different and not shy away with different.” Doyley encouraged getting library books featuring kids of many races and cultures written by authors of other races, and as parents read these with their kids, saying things like, “Wow, isn’t that cool? Isn’t she beautiful? Oh, I think she would make a great friend, don’t you? You know she’s so kind in this story.”
Nicole Doyley
As a child’s maturity and reading level grows, Doyley suggested discussing more history and historical figures. She advised celebrating the strength and resiliency present in these stories like those of brilliant scientists and entrepreneurs from racial minorities that had thrice the obstacles to get to where they did. She gave the example of cornrows believed to offer a way of weaving maps into women’s hair to help slaves escape. She also recommended talking as a family when something happens that is racial and is covered in the media. Doyley advised being proactive about fostering empathy and combating racial stereotypes, because segregation is still very present in our neighborhoods and communities and most apparent in the social lives of parents and adults. “Our culture is very segregated. Statistically, 75% of white people will never have a close Black friend,” said Doyley, who suggested seeking out more diverse communities through schools, sports, clubs and thoughtful, authentic friendships.
“I think we are all anemic,” said Doyley: “You become anemic if you eat only one kind of food, and I think we’re all anemic if we partake of only one culture.”
“Around the Table” podcast posts new episodes on Fridays. The next episode debuts on October 25. The hosts will talk with children and youth about this historic 2024 election and political discourse in the midst of many difficult national themes of war, poverty, natural disasters and issues of race.
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