Children of a Troubled Time

The author urges adults to address not just 'how kids are thinking' but also 'how they are feeling.' She believes that this combination is the key to combating racist attitudes in American children. Hagerman’s data is chillingly thorough, and her argument is well supported and convincing... required reading for antiracist parents, caregivers, and allies. ~Kirkus Reviews

With clarity, elegance, and precision and relying on rich interview data, Margaret A. Hagerman shows how the Trump moment has deeply shaped the racialized ideologies and emotions of children. Whether color-blind or white nationalist, children raised in this era will likely retain the scary imprint of Trumpism. I sincerely hope readers, parents, and educators take her suggestions of how to interrupt children’s racism to heart as the nation’s future depends on it. A marvelous book! ~Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, author of Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States

Hagerman demonstrates the vital importance of listening to children. By foregrounding their stories of life under a Trump presidency, she shows us that fear, anxiety, anger, happiness, relief, surprise are racialized emotions that can sustain, reflect and challenge racial inequality. With her characteristic attention to the lived experiences of kids, once again Hagerman reminds us that kids’ voices matter and we need to take them seriously not only as political, but as social actors. ~C.J. Pascoe, author of Nice is Not Enough: Inequality and the Limits of Kindness at American High

With a keen ear and a real skill at weaving together narrative and analytical threads, Hagerman offers us a highly readable and thoroughly engaging account of the dynamic and too-often little understood processes of racial learning and the inflections of racialized emotions expressed by kids as they witnessed Trump’s bewildering ascension to presidential office despite his inhumanity. They watched an ugly and unapologetic racism operating in the full light of day, were forced to confront the limits of racial progress, an increase of anti-immigrant sentiments, and a lot of gender backsliding as they struggled to understand what this all means for us as a country and our fragile democracy. Timely, insightful, human-centered, consequential. ~Amy Best, author of Prom Night, Youth Schools and Popular Culture and Fast Food Kids: French Fries, Lunch Lines and Social Ties.

Hagerman opens our eyes yet again. Children of a Troubled Time presents a brilliant, searing exploration of how children try to make sense of our racially and politically polarized nation; and about how, as she puts it, racism 'is not just a local phenomenon; it is a broadly American project.' This urgent and insightful book exposes how we let our children down, and teaches us how we can come together to save them. Children of a Troubled Time is required reading for anyone who cares about the future of, and future generations of, American democracy. ~Jonathan M. Metzl, author of What We’ve Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms