Beginning in the mid nineteenth century in America, childhood became synonymous with innocenceoa reversal of the previously- dominant Calvinist belief that children were depraved, sinful creatures. As the idea of childhood innocence took hold, it became racialized: popular cultu…
"In Racial Innocence, Robin Bernstein argues that the concept of "childhood innocence" has been central to U.S. racial formation since the mid-nineteenth century. Children--white ones imbued with innocence, black ones excluded from it, and others of color erased by it--figured p…
Beginning in the mid nineteenth century in America, childhood became synonymous with innocenceoa reversal of the previously- dominant Calvinist belief that children were depraved, sinful creatures. As the idea of childhood innocence took hold, it became racialized: popular cultu…