Popular press articles have advocated for parent–child conversations about race and racism to prevent children from developing racial biases, yet empirical investigations of the impact of racial socialization in White U.S. families are scarce. In an article published in Perspectives on Psychological Science in 2020, Scott et al. warned that, given the lack of empirical evidence, parents might actually do more harm than good by talking to their children about race. In this comment, we draw upon the literature on (a) racial socialization, (b) parenting and parent–child discourse, and (c) the role of nonverbal communication in parental socialization to inform our understanding of parents’ ability to engage in race-related conversations in the absence of empirical guidance. We also highlight emerging evidence of the potential benefits of these conversations (even if parents are uncomfortable). In sum, the wealth of existing literature suggests that parents can successfully navigate challenging conversations with their children—which tends to result in better outcomes for children than avoiding those conversations. Thus, although we support Scott et al.’s call for researchers to develop more empirical research, we part with the authors’ assertion that researchers need to wait for more sufficient evidence before providing recommendations to White parents—we believe that the time for White families to begin talking about race and racism is now.

大众媒体文章提倡亲子之间就种族和种族主义进行对话，以防止儿童产生种族偏见，但关于种族社会化对美国白人家庭影响的实证研究却很少。在发表在《心理科学展望》上的一篇文章中2020 年，斯科特等人。警告说，由于缺乏经验证据，父母与孩子谈论种族实际上可能弊大于利。在这篇评论中，我们利用关于 (a) 种族社会化、(b) 养育和亲子话语以及 (c) 非语言交流在父母社会化中的作用的文献来了解我们对父母参与种族的能力的理解在缺乏经验指导的情况下进行相关对话。我们还强调了这些对话潜在好处的新证据（即使父母感到不舒服）。总之，现有的大量文献表明，父母可以成功地与孩子进行具有挑战性的对话——这往往会给孩子带来比避免这些对话更好的结果。因此，尽管我们支持 Scott 等人。