Racism Explained to My Daughter
novel by Tahar Ben Jelloun
Racism Explained to My Daughter (by Tahar Ben Jelloun, 1998, ISBN 88-7754-206-3) is a book in which the author, during a demonstration against an immigration law in Paris, answers his daughter's questions about the reasons for racism.
The author's intent was to explain, with this book, the modern "trauma" that racism is to children and to help adults answer their children's questions on racism. He says that children are more likely to understand that one isn't born racist, but becomes one. Adults are not likely to change their ideas.
The author writes this after going to a demonstration in France against bans on immigration where his then ten-year-old daughter tries to comprehend what they are fighting for and what racism is, who is racist, how one becomes racist, if she is in fact also racist.
In many ways, Racism Explained to My Daughter can be seen as an anti-colonialist text that is comprehensible and straightforward to children. Since Ben Jelloun finds education to be the key component in ending racism, he deliberately educates the youth by defining terms in an accessible and understandable way to his young audience. Some of these key terms include racism, racist, colonialism and anti-Semitism. He is aware that this is a lot of dense and overwhelming material, so he encourages his audience of children to recognize and learn from their mistakes.
Scientific racism
Ben Jelloun directly disputes prevailing ideas of scientific racism.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Racism Explained to My Daughter” as novel by Tahar Ben Jelloun. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as novel by Tahar Ben Jelloun. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3795453. VIAF identifies the subject as 219267180. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1998.
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This entry incorporates text from “Racism Explained to My Daughter” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.