My Black History Month

“P is white like daddy and I am brown like you. What’s E?[the youngest member of our family]” asked L.

And so begins our discussion about race, I wish I didn’t have to go there. The simplicity of race is easy to explain, the ramifications of race are both painful and disheartening to repeat. Motherhood is hard enough.

I remember when my oldest, at the age of 5, came home from a neighbor’s house, crying. “----- said I couldn’t go on the trampoline because I was black.” I started to interrupt, angrily. “But I’m not black,” my son wailed, talking over me, “I’m brown!” I closed my mouth.

It was at that moment I understood that I was putting my experiences of my life on a child who can’t possibly fathom the issues behind the color of his skin. I let his description sit.

It came up again, months later. “I’m brown like you, and P is white like daddy.” Wanting to acknowledge both the blackness and whiteness in both kids, I fought to keep my mouth closed, to maintain his innocence.

Race hasn’t come up much in our house lately. Perhaps it’s because my kids are in schools where there are other kids that look like them. More likely, kids ages 3 – 8 don’t see the world the way us adults see the world. According to a book called “I’m Chocolate and You’re Vanilla” there are developmental stages to understanding race just like there are developmental stages to understanding that a square peg cannot go into a round hole. Kids use color, among other things, as a descriptor of people. “That brown person…” has no historical significance to my 5 year old. She’s just stating the obvious.

And ya’ know what? For once, this over-explaining, teach-my-kids-everything mother is relieved to know that this is one thing I don’t have to explain yet. The time is coming, though, when I will have to share with him a brutal past and a discouraging future…all because of the color of his skin.



A side note: I challenge all of us, myself included, to THINK differently about someone who is not like you, or me or the people you hang out with. Look at that person and say to yourself "Hello PERSON." If we think differently, then maybe your children and my children will not have to have these conversations.