How To Be An Anti-Racist Parent In 2026

What I’m about to write about is a heavy topic. It’s not about parenting toddlers. It’s not about baby-led weaning, sleep schedules or when to introduce solids, although all those topics are important. It’s about something much harder to look at, and much more urgent to name. It’s about the moment we are living in, and what it means for our children, especially Black children.

We are in crisis (and not just racialized folks)

What we are witnessing in the United States right now is not simply political theatre. It is a deep and dangerous shift toward authoritarianism, racism, xenophobia, misogyny and the erosion of basic protections for people who are already marginalized. This is not abstract. It is showing up in book bans, attacks on immigrants, the criminalization of protest, the targeting of trans and queer communities, and the normalization of language that treats entire groups of people as threats.

These ideas aren't staying south of the border

Canada has always liked to tell itself a comforting story: that we are different, more moderate, more protected from the extremes we see elsewhere. But that story has never been entirely true. And it's becoming harder to hold onto.

We have already seen how quickly U.S.-style culture wars and political rhetoric can take root here. The trucker convoy that occupied Ottawa in 2022 did not emerge in isolation. It was shaped by cross-border movements, by imported narratives about freedom, government overreach and grievance politics. What unfolded in our capital was a warning, not just about protests, but about how ideology moves, hardens and reshapes public life. And we are seeing the ripple effects in places that should be safe for children.

Racism is in our kids' classrooms

When Black girls talk about what school feels like, they are not talking about safety, curiosity or belonging. In Voices Unheard, the first national survey of Black women and girls in Canada, not a single girl named school as a place where she felt secure. Instead, they described being watched, regulated, silenced and treated as problems to be managed. They spoke about surveillance, about being punished more harshly, about feeling both hypervisible and invisible at the same time. And they told us about their stark introductions to misogyny (misogynoir if you will) where boys sorted them by the hue of their skin, ranked them according to who was ‘easier’, more sexually available and commented on and policied their bodies.

In Alberta, a 2025 provincial directive led to the removal of more than 200 books from school libraries under the banner of filtering out so-called explicit content. Books like The Handmaid’s Tale, The Color Purple, and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings were caught in that sweep, along with other titles that explore race, identity, power, resistance and survival. Even after the policy was revised, the chilling effect remains. When stories that reflect the lives and realities of marginalized children are removed, those children lose more than books. They lose mirrors. They lose validation. They lose the quiet assurance that their stories belong.

ashley herring (who spells her name intentionally in lower case), a Black mother in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has lived through what happens when that shift goes unchecked. After repeated incidents of racial harm, her son being disciplined more harshly than his white peers, her daughter being told her natural hair was distracting, she made the painful decision to homeschool.

“I didn’t want to homeschool,” she told me. “But the school cared more about protecting itself than protecting my children.”

To Canadian parents, she offered this warning. “Don’t assume this is just an American thing. Don’t wait until the books are banned and the police are back in your halls. The ground shifts slowly at first, then all at once. Speak now. Organize now.”

Police are in classrooms, too

In Ontario, Bill 33 has mandated the return of policing programs in schools, including School Resource Officers (SROs), wherever local police services exist. These are programs that were previously paused or removed after Black families and advocates raised serious concerns about their harmful impact on racialized students. Now they are back, often under softer language, but with the same uniforms, the same authority and the same consequences. Surveillance is being reintroduced as safety.

We see this return to police in schools right across the country, including in Vancouver, where School Liaison Officers (SLOs) were returned to school despite protest. This is not a coincidence. It's a pattern.

If reality feels dystopian, you're not alone

There is a reason so many people are returning to the work of Octavia Butler right now, particularly her Parable series. Long before this moment, Butler imagined a society shaped by widening inequality, political extremism, religious nationalism and the collapse of public trust. What she wrote decades ago feels unsettlingly familiar today. Her work is not just science fiction. It is a warning about what happens when fear becomes policy, when cruelty becomes normalized, and when institutions meant to protect become instruments of harm instead.

For many Black families, that future is not speculative. We don’t have to imagine it. It is already here, and it has been here.

Robyn Maynard, author of Policing Black Lives, told me that what we are seeing right now is part of a dangerous convergence of authoritarianism, institutional fear and anti-Blackness reinforcing each other. “We have to understand what’s happening as part of a longer lineage,  and a very dangerous present," she says. “What we’re seeing in schools is not separate from what we’re seeing in the streets. Policing is being rebranded as safety. But for Black communities, especially Black children, this has never meant safety. It has meant surveillance, punishment and harm. The school system is being weaponized to send a message about who belongs and who doesn’t. Schools absorb the logic of the state. And right now, that logic is shifting toward control and exclusion."

Black girls feel that shift before many adults are willing to name it.

What kind of world do you want your kids to inherit?

In Ontario and across the country, there are efforts to respond in ways that go beyond symbolism. The Sankofa Anti-Black Racism Framework, for example, calls on schools to examine who is being disciplined, who is being erased, whose stories are told and who is protected. It demands data, accountability and structural change, not just statements of good intention. But frameworks alone cannot carry this moment.

In 2026, anti-racism cannot be optional. It cannot be seasonal. It cannot be something we return to only when headlines force our hand. It must be woven into how we design schools, how we train educators, how we respond to harm, and how we listen to children when they tell us they are not safe.

This is not just an American crisis. It is a Canadian one too.

Black girls are already telling us what it feels like when fear replaces care, when control replaces curiosity, when silence replaces accountability. We are being called to pay attention. To be brave enough to name what is happening. To understand that what we allow to take root now will shape the world our children inherit.

Because when Black children are safe, all children can breathe. And when Black girls are heard, the whole system has a chance to heal. This is not a light conversation. But it is a necessary one. And this is the moment to have it.

What anti-racism looks like at home

Anti-racism isn’t a one-time conversation. It’s an ongoing practice; one that shows up in how we talk to our kids, how we respond to schools and what we’re willing to challenge, even when it’s uncomfortable.

Name what’s happening

Kids already notice unfairness. Avoiding the topic doesn’t protect them; it leaves them to make sense of it alone. When you notice unfair treatment, name race as the motive and ask how this pattern shows up across the school or system, not just in this one moment, because racism isn’t just about certain people’s attitudes or behaviour, it’s systemic.

Teach the difference between comfort and fairness

Something can feel uncomfortable and still be right. Help kids understand the difference between gut feelings and awkwardness. Speaking up can feel awkward even when it's important.

Get involved at school

Join the parent community or association. Find out how discipline decisions are made. Donate books about diverse families to the library. You don’t have to be confrontational, but you do have to be consistent.

Let kids see you learning

You don’t need perfect answers. Saying “I got that wrong” or “I’m still learning” teaches accountability and growth.