really?

June 29, 2009

really?

For the past month or so, I have spent my two hours of my morning at a local elementary school.  Today I was talking to one of the little buggers who is exceptionally well behaved and friendly.  He seems like he comes from a good home, his mom always kisses him goodbye, and through conversations I’ve learned his parents have taught him to appreciate art and sports.  He has a mohawk which is supposed to be for football (I didn’t know kids play team football in the summer).  His mom teases that he is the only kid on the football field that knocks people over and then asks if their okay as he lends them a hand to get up.  This morning he told me something that really surprised me. 

He told me he was moving.  When I asked him why, he looked at me with his big blue eyes and said, "Because my mom says there are too many (then he mouthed the words) black people."  It really wasn’t the answer I was expecting.  Thoughts raced through my mind…do I address it while the other kids are at the table? is it my place to say anything if the mother chooses to instill this worldview in her child?  how could I appropriately talk to him about it in a way that won’t send the message "you’re mom’s wrong, don’t listen to her"?  Did he mouth those words because he doesn’t agree with it, or because he knows its not something you talk about in public?  Before I could muster a response two other little girls at the table started spouting everything that popped into their little minds and out their mouths.

The moment I began to have faith that people are beyond defining one another by race I am reminded how naive such a view is.  The funny thing about racism is that it is never a matter of bad people are racist and good people aren’t.  There are many well-intentioned, kind-hearted people who hold to such an ugly belief system.  A lot of them may not even believe how much they hold to it or the degree of which it has permeated their mindset.  To me it is a crude viewpoint that we must fight off until its extinction.  I do see the tides of change and generational progress that we continue to make.  I can only hope that this boy flows into the changing tide.

 

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