During Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court Nomination, Senator Ted Cruz in a bizarre rant went on and on about a book titled, Antiracist Baby. He claims the book supports critical race theory (CRT). What is glaringly apparent is that the Senator does not understand what exactly CRT is. CRT is a theory about systemic racism that is only taught in law schools. The anger regarding it is fake-cause outrage. There is nothing negative in the book, Antiracist Baby. The author even states that babies are not born racist. That didn’t matter to Senator Ted Cruz because he was making his point or getting his social media points, since he was caught on Twitter searching for his name, shortly after his theatrics.

Fake-Cause Outrage

He asked the honorable Judge Jackson if she agreed that “a baby can be racist?” The book’s pages were totally out of context. It addresses the adult readers on how to manage racism through the fictional character of a baby who also proclaims and talks in the story. The book is a guide for preventing racism and maybe that is what scares the Senator the most. 

Yes, Children See Color

The bottom line is that, yes children do see color at a very young age and that is okay. Seeing your friends as brown, yellow, peach, and white is okay. Hate is not. Research shows that even “infants, as young as three months old, prefer faces from certain racial groups.” In addition, “nine-month-olds use race to categorize faces, and three-year-old children in the U.S. associate some racial groups with negative traits. By age four, children in the U.S. associate whites with wealth and higher status, and race-based discrimination is already widespread when children start elementary school” (apa.org). This research from the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General^® also shows that parents believe they should start discussing race when children are about five-years-old but by then, racial differences are already established in their minds. The difference is very young children don’t know about racial hate. Hate is often taught at home.  

More Anti-Racist Children’s Books

Anti-racist books teach children to live in harmony with others. Senator Cruz obviously did not read the entire book and is looking for sound bites for his next campaign video. A few other books that teach children not to discriminate include Woke Baby and Colin Kaepernick’s new children’s book, I Color Myself Different, who in the book’s true story, saw himself as a different color as a young child. Kaepernick’s book is available for purchase on April 5, 2022, but you can pre-order it on Amazon.

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