Rising Out Of Two Stories
(ROOTS)
ROOTS was created for families navigating the layered identity journey of biracial children who live between two racial worlds. Centered around the unique experience of Black and white biracial identity, ROOTS offers a space to explore identity, voice, belonging, and pride—without needing to choose sides or shrink truths.
In a world that often demands clarity or conformity, this program holds the complexity and beauty of “both.” ROOTS is a brave space to process questions of racial authenticity, internalized bias, family dynamics, and external projections—with honesty and care.
ROOTS is a 15-week curriculum designed to foster racial identity formation, self-worth, and intergenerational healing. Each participant joins a developmentally appropriate track, and caregivers engage in their own learning and unlearning—because identity grows best in community.
15-Week Curriculum
6-10 years old (Children)
We use storytelling, guided play, music, and visual art to help young children explore who they are and where they come from. Sessions build language around race, skin color, family, and fairness—without shame or silence. Caregivers join in selected sessions.
Themes:
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Where I come from
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What I look like
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My family, my story
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Noticing race and kindness
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Saying what I feel
11-14 years old (Preteens)
This track creates space for preteens to ask big questions and navigate growing awareness of race, belonging, and identity. Sessions include interactive exercises, journaling, group dialogue, and creative expression.
Themes:
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Who I am and how others see me
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Being biracial in a binary world
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Speaking up + self-protection
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Pride without performance
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Culture, community, and calling
15-17 years old (Teens)
We go deeper into identity conflict, internalized messages, racial expectations, and navigating peer and family dynamics. Teens will build language for their truth, reflect on how identity shows up in choices, and define what pride means on their own terms.
Themes:
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Invisible or hypervisible
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Family dynamics and racial tension
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Owning your narrative
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Code-switching vs. authenticity
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Biracial joy and liberation
18-24 years old (Adults)
For emerging adults carving out identity in school, work, love, and activism. We explore the long arc of biracial development and support participants in reclaiming voice, reconciling community ties, and moving toward rooted adulthood.
Themes:
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Rewriting the story I inherited
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Navigating racial ambiguity
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Language, lineage, and land
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Belonging without performance
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Leading from the middle
Parents & Caregivers
Caregivers of biracial Black and white children are coached through their own racial identity, cultural lens, and influence in shaping how their child sees themselves. This track invites honest reflection, accountability, and love in action. Together, we explore how to parent without erasure, protect without control, and lead without centering ourselves.
Themes:
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Your racial lens and the power it carries in parenting
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Navigating whiteness, proximity to privilege, and internalized bias
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Avoiding erasure, colorism, and the trap of saviorism
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Creating language and rituals for racial conversation at home
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Being a steady, safe base for racial identity exploration
Why ROOTS Is Needed
Biracial children—especially those with Black and white parentage—grow up navigating unspoken rules, contradictory expectations, and a world that often demands they choose. ROOTS exists to affirm their wholeness, protect their joy, and give them language for who they are and how they belong.
Below are the reasons this kind of coaching is critical:
1. Identity Development
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Conflicting Messages: Children often receive conflicting signals about who they are—from family, peers, media, and systems.
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Code-Switching Fatigue: Many learn early how to shift who they are to fit in—and slowly lose track of what’s authentic.
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Internalized Doubt: Without support, biracial children may question their legitimacy, value, or right to identify fully with any part of themselves.
2. Social Belonging & Visibility
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Feeling "Too Much" or "Not Enough": Many biracial kids experience rejection from both Black and white communities, creating a painful sense of in-between-ness.
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Hypervisibility or Erasure: Depending on how they present, children may be exoticized, tokenized, or entirely overlooked in cultural conversations.
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Isolation: They may not know anyone who looks like them, lives like them, or talks about race in a way that matches their lived reality.
3. Family Dynamics
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Unspoken Tension: Even well-meaning families often carry unaddressed racial bias, microaggressions, or silence around race.
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Uneven Validation: Children may feel closer to one side of their identity depending on which parent or culture is more affirmed at home.
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Caretaking Roles: Some children learn to protect a white parent from their own discomfort about race—or to translate the world for a Black parent navigating racism.
4. Education & Environment
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Lack of Representation: Schools often don't reflect biracial narratives in their curriculum or staff.
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Stereotyping & Policing: Biracial children may be perceived differently depending on how they “read” racially—and are often disciplined unfairly or treated with suspicion.
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Assumptions About Privilege: Their experience is frequently dismissed with phrases like “But you’re not really Black” or “You’re lucky to be both.”
5. Strengths that Deserve Support
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Complexity as a Gift: Biracial kids are often skilled code-switchers, mediators, bridge-builders, and creative thinkers—because they’ve had to be.
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Resilience: Navigating identity in a polarized world builds strength—but that strength must be affirmed, not expected as a given.
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Leadership Potential: With the right support, these children can become powerful voices for nuance, healing, and systemic change.