It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region, and investigate,

report, explore, from WBEZ.

Hi, I'm Ariane Nettles. I'm the mother of a black boy in Chicago, and that's why I wanted to take on this week's question for

Curious City. It came from Mark Messley. Like a lot of people in Chicago, Mark was shaken by seeing

the video of Laquine McDonald, shot 16 times by a Chicago police officer. It sparked conversations

with family and friends about how to talk to kids about police.

He says some of those conversations were frustrating.

I've never had a conversation with other white parents about how to talk to our kids,

about how to handle themselves if they're pulled over by the police.

But my African American friends and colleagues,

that is a part of their parenting experience.

And for some of them, that was a part of the experience

that they had with their parents.

Mark wishes everyone understood that experience better,

so we could empathize and talk about these problems more openly.

So he reached out to Curious City, looking for numbers and studies on how those conversations happen in different families.

I set out to answer his question, and in the process, I came across guidance that I found useful.

I'm going to share some of that in a minute.

But first, the short answer to his question

about research is no. We couldn't find any studies on the differences. So we did our own little

survey. We went to Daly Plaza one day and we asked black and white people the same question.

Did you have a talk with your kids? Or did your parents talk with you about how to handle yourself with the police?

...