Specifically relating to race, I agree that exposure to a diverse community is not enough. It is crucial that children have toys and other resources that enable them to play out their ideas about differences in skin colour. They need diversity to be apparent in all their playthings. They need skin colour crayons, pencils and paints. They need paper in different skin shades and books *at home* that represent people from many different communities. They need to see their parent choose to play-act with the minority characters in play sets (in a non-derogatory way). They need the parent to draw diverse characters when they are co-creating art with their child. They need parents to read story books that draw on the other heritages of the world.

They also need us, to ask manufacturers of toys (for the Lego and Playmobil and other toy sets) to be truly representative of the mix of skin colours in the world. They need for such diversity to be a standard part of any playset – not an additional resource you can “add on” to a set that prioritises white characters.

By the way, my daughter loved reading “The Fire Children” by Eric Maddern. It’s a West African creation tale that accounts for how we’re all different skin colours. It’s prompted several discussions about skin colour, and creation beliefs and cultural differences and similarities. I love it when a book gets us talking like that!