A Child's Innocence...(and my own shame)

Our Little Gym class ended last week, and I decided not to sign up again until summer. Since Mondays were usually Little Gym days, we stayed home and played. I left PBS on all morning, and they toggled between watching a few minutes of a show and doing some crafts I set up for them. Good idea, right?

I also try to help my kids be unaware of color or race - everyone just looks different. That's the message that Sesame Street tries to get across, and I think it's a good one. In a few years, they can learn about geography and understand that people come from different places in the world. We have a very diverse neighborhood, which I love, and the kids are exposed to all sorts of people at school as well. I don't normally watch Oprah while the kids are awake, but there have been episodes that they have watched. They love her, and are always asking me to pronounce her name. Good lessons, right?

At 12:30 today, a show called "A Place of Our Own" came on, and it's a panel of women and childcare professionals who talk about how to develop your young children. There was, of course, a diverse panel, and Will asked about one of the ladies.

"Who's that black lady?" he asked. Horror!! He's too young to be distinguishing skin color like that! And on Martin Luther King day of all days! So I said, "what?" a couple of times while I tried to decide how to proceed. I then realized that to him, the lady probably resembled Oprah. So I said, "That's not Oprah". He answered with his usual "Oh", and was satisfied.

I thought for a minute and decided to ask where he had learned how to distinguish race. I asked, "What made you call her a 'black lady'?" My innocent son replied, "She has black on."

Oh wow. He was right. The woman was wearing a black suit. My hyper-aware eyes went straight to the color of her skin, and I didn't even notice that she was wearing black clothing. Moreover, I didn't think about the fact that he would probably have called her "brown" and not "black", since he hasn't had any experience in societal language.

Not so good. I almost ruined the innocence of my 3-year-old boy with my own hypersensitivity of skin color and race. On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2011, let's all remember that peace is what we're striving for - no matter what you look like.

~K