In an article being early released in Pediatrics this week entitled, “The Role of ‘The Talk’ and Its Themes in Black Youths’ Anticipatory Stress of Police Brutality,” Lindsey Webb, PhD, and colleagues from Johns Hopkins, University of Illinois-Chicago, University of Minnesota, and University of Texas studied parents’ discussions with their children about how to manage interactions with police to determine the impact that such discussions have on the children’s concerns that they or someone else may experience police brutality (10.1542/peds.2024-067065).
These discussions are commonly called “the talk,” which is an unfortunate (and sometimes insufficient) workaround to help children deal with police encounters in ways that minimize the likelihood that such encounters will escalate and result in harm to the child. While many parents may view “the talk” as a protective form of anticipatory guidance, racially socializing youth may have negative consequences, and this supports the importance of this study.
For background, the authors correctly highlight the data that:
- Youth who are Black are overrepresented in terms of those stopped by police.
- Nearly half of those stopped have been subjected to police brutality.
- Among youth who are assaulted, those who are Black are three times as likely to be assaulted as those who are White.
The authors analyzed cross-sectional survey data from 339 Baltimore City Black youth aged 12–21 to assess (via regression analysis) the associations between having “the talk” and the anticipatory stress of directly or vicariously experienced police brutality. Specifically, youth were asked how worried they were about the likelihood of themselves (direct) or others (vicarious) experiencing police brutality.
As may be predicted, youth who received “the talk” reported less anticipatory stress of direct and vicarious police brutality. However, there was increased anticipatory stress among youth for whom “the talk” included instructions directing them to record police officers’ behavior.
It should be noted that the participants were asked to comment on hypothetical situations. It would be interesting (yet possibly ethically questionable) to ask similar questions of this group of youth at some future time point and determine whether “the talk” had an impact among those who had actual encounters with police over the interval time span.
The accompanying commentary by Dr. Joseph Wright from George Washington University highlights another study that found that it was possible to predict, within the first 45 words of the verbal exchange between an individual and officer, which interactions would have escalating levels of use of force (10.1542/peds.2024-068817). This reaffirms the importance of making a good “first impression” (which is part of the goal of “the talk”) when dealing with tense police encounters but unfortunately often puts the onus on the individual to present themselves in a less “threatening” manner.
Dr. Wright presciently recommends including a version of “the talk” in the anticipatory guidance included in subsequent editions of the Bright Futures guide. Doing so may help us reach the goal he notes in his closing: “we all want our children . . . to return home safely.”
