Do your children seem to have friends of one race or another?

I agree.

 

I remember a study that showed that children before the age of about four do NOT see "color" - they only see people. And it's quite a revelation when it first occurs to them that people come in different colors.

I remember when my dd was about 4, and as we walked through the parking lot at the grocery store, she suddenly realized that a family walking some distance from us were black. "Mama, those people are black!" "Yes, honey, they are." "Why?" "Because God made them that way." "Why?" "His choice, I guess." And that was the extent of it.

When I was in grad school we had to be assigned an internship, and we were asked to write down what general geographic areas we would prefer, so that if possible we could be assigned somewhere we liked (closer to home, whatever). Of course, 2nd-year students got first choice, and we were 1st-years. So this one girl, who had only ever gone to majority-black schools, including college, was ranting and raving about where she'd been placed for internship, and about how she got shafted because she was black. I tried my best to explain to her, no it's not because you're black, it's because we're first-years. I had put down I wanted places north and west, and got assigned the farthest possible south and east that there were places! She never quite got over it, I think...

In my second year, there was this truly great guy - good student, very aware of his (few) academic weaknesses and determined to rise above them, the first in his family to go to college never mind grad school (as was I) -- and he and I were assigned to the same location for intership. So we often shared rides and he talked about his girlfriends and I talked about my boyfriends and we shared other ideas about life in general. He was black, btw. One day we went to a fastfood place for lunch, and as we were leaving, he commented about how those older (black) ladies had been giving us the "stinkeye" the whole time - to which I had been totally oblivious. So when I understood what he was saying about it, I got really devillish and said, "Let's give them something to look at!" and grabbed his hand/arm as though we really were a couple. We laughed all the way back to work!

 

Lindina- I notice those stinkyeyes too when DH and I go out. DH doesn't notice at all. We just went to the Old Country Buffet and I felt people staring at us. They were mostly old folks but there were some young was there too and both groups were looking.

 

DH thinks that I am a strong person and I am. He seems to think i could handle the kind of racism that would be smacking me in the face at his family reunion. I’m sure I could but why would I want to? He's like let's try and see what happens. I am still thinking WHY! However, he is ok with me not wanting to go. H e doesn't get mad or anything.

 

Here's the article I was remembering, from Newsweek, published Sep 5, 2009...

http://www.newsweek.com/id/214989 ("Kids as young as 6 months judge others based on skin color. What's a parent to do?")

It seemed convincing to me, considering I once saw an 18 month old panic and refuse to go near a man with a very bushy beard. She wouldn't look at him and started crying whenever he spoke to her. It took a long time to convince her he was friendly. We guessed she'd never seen anyone with a beard before, since her father and uncle were clean-shaven.

Little kids definitely see more than just "people", and I don't see why they'd notice hair and not skin colour.

Lindina - I do think you handled your 4yo's question very nicely! Me, I started talking about melanin, lol! I don't do age-appropriate explanations well.

 

My girls had a bi-racial friend at our church. And they never noticed that her Daddy's skin was dark! It came up somewhere about someone being "black", and they had no idea what I was talking about. I mentioned that his skin was a lot darker than ours, "like Hannah's daddy". And Rachael says, "What do you mean? He looks just like us...." She was probably first grade at the time.

Lindina, I had some black guy-friends I would have done that with! And the young man at church would do it in an instant with Rachael (though it might not be wise where our church is located; they might get jumped!).

 

I have never noticed anything like that happen to me since I have been an adult. It probably has happened (people giving the stink eye, etc.) but I guess I never think twice about it to pay attention to or look for it. My best friend is a black lesbian. Can't get much more "different" than me. When I was in paralegal school I went to lunch with my black guy friend all the time. Never noticed anything. I guess because I don't think anything is wrong with it I dont see when other people do.

 

I assumed there was no racism in my town when I was a teenager, because our school was diverse and I had friends of all colours and I'd never noticed anyone giving us a hard time for hanging out together. And having visited Texas, I assumed that since there was no overt hostility between the races, that must mean everything was just hunky-dory.

Then when we were 16, my girl friends started getting their driver's licenses. And one day we were sitting around, when a black friend asked us how often we'd been pulled over by the cops so they could check our license and registration and confirm that the car wasn't stolen. My White friends looked at her blankly. They'd *never* been stopped by the police, for anything. But an East Indian friend (very dark skin), said that it had happened to her several times.

The cops weren't ever rude. They checked their papers and let them go on their way with a "have a good day, ma'am", but it was clear to all of us that there was a "driving while black" thing going on here.

As if little white girls never drive without licenses or steal cars!

This was many years ago, however, and hopefully things have changed. The police have tried hard to make their force more inclusive, encouraging minorities and women to choose them as a career.

I just remind myself that racism sometimes isn't easy to see.

 

Oh make no mistake there are plenty of people in the South who are extremely racist. Especially the smaller southern towns where the "good ol boys" are running the place. There are also plenty of people who don't say anything publicly but privately they have hate. There is a small Texas town that for many many years had a sign that read (and I am not making this up) "Don't Let The Lights Go Down On Your Black A** In Vidor Texas".
I know you dont' have to be white to be racist. There are plenty of Hispanics and Blacks that have hatered toward white people. Hate is hate and it happens but it isn't right.

 

That is very true.

 

I teach at the local ps and I correct kids when they use someone's skin color to describe them rather than saying, "that girl in the pink shirt".

I am in a bi-racial marriage and we have taught our boys that we are all the same and God created us all. My boys too do not care to hear someone be described by their skin color. So yes, we are color blind.

 

...which is why it was atrocious that Bob Jones University imposed a ban on inter-racial dating until they were pressured by the state to drop it just a few years ago. Christian universities and colleges should be leading the way in breaking down such barriers, not enforcing them.

 

Perhaps not so much "blind", as choosing not to see, yes?

I support your efforts to teach racial sensitivity in school, completely! And in fact, it's considered common courtesy in my town not to mention skin colour, which can lead to some amusing mix-ups at times.

My curly-headed, but undeniably White, son was stopped by police one day on his way home from his friend's house. While he was answering the officer's questions (where did you come from, where are you going), another police officer drove past, stuck his head out the window, and shouted, "You've got the wrong boy! The one we want to talk to is over there!"

And he points down the block at a curly-headed boy just about my son's age. Who also happened to be quite Black. But no one wanted to mention the colour of his skin when they were putting out the description of him. Because that would be insensitive.

You know, sometimes I think we'll have truly reached a "color-blind" state of consciousness when skin colour has exactly the same importance as hair colour. Meaning yes, it's there. It's obvious. We can talk about it. And we don't have to pretend we don't see it, because there's truely no more meaning in it than saying someone is blonde or brunette.

 

I think the OTHER issue here, other than the obvious one of ignoring an important descriptive detail, was what I think was an assumption made on the officer's part. I'm guessing that, since race wasn't mentioned, the officer assumed the person was white. We tend to do that, at least white people do. It was brought to my attention by my former black roomate when some guy came to visit her and she wasn't there. I didn't know him, and when she got home, I was telling her about it and said "a black guy" or something like that. She stopped me, and asked why I mentioned that. That she would ASSUME he was black, unless I said otherwise. That if a white guy had visited me, she wouldn't have mentioned that he was white, because that would have been assumed.

 

I can't be certain the officer made the assumption... It's certainly possible that he did, but it's also just as likely that my son was the first curly haired, adolescent boy he spotted walking down the street.

But yes - I sometimes have to catch myself when I'm writing and make sure my stories aren't overwhelmingly populated with White, Middle Class, Anglophones. And fixing that takes a little more thought and effort than just slapping an ethnic name on the aforementioned Anglo.

Oh... and I was reminded this morning of something funny that happened a few months ago.

My then-13 year old daughter was reading an old book, and pointed out to us that it had the "N Word". Well, that wouldn't be uncommon for an old book, but I didn't remember seeing it in this particular one.

So I said to my daughter, "What's the 'N Word'?"

She blushed and couldn't say it.

"Come over here," I said. "Whisper it in my ear. I promise you won't be in any trouble."

So she walks over and whispers in my ear, "Negro!"

I'm sorry to say I laughed so hard, I ended up having to explain it all to my husband and my friend who were in the room at the time.

My poor daughter! But we did have a good talk with her that night about the REAL "N Word", and how other words (like Negro) have come in and out of fashion over the decades. She took it all with good humour.

But honest to goodness, her sweet little ears had never actually heard the real "N Word".

 

Interesting thread. The area in which we live, which happens to be the same area I grew up in, is pretty racially diverse. Hubby grew up in an area that was mostly white, very little diversity. A friend of ours, who happens to be black, came up north with us to visit hubby's family and he had to ask me why everyone was starring at him. Thankfully, he has a very good sense of humor and can shake things off easily. After a day, he actually thought it was funny how the town hasn't moved beyond "Mayberry". lol

On the original topic, because of our very diverse area, Tanner really doesn't cling to one race over another. Our area is still 'predominately' white, so he's naturally going to have more white friends. However, one if his best bud's at school happens to be black and has a few other friend's who are hispanic, asian, and mexican. It's pretty interesting though...Tanner is going into third grade, and I have yet to hear him bring up 'race'. He has never questioned why his best buddy Dwayne has darker skin, and he has never questioned why there are people of different skin tones. He just knows God made everyone different and he accepts that. I don't care who he clings to. As long as the kids are respectful and good influences on him, they can be orange with green polkadots for all I care. ;-)

 

You know, I can kind of understand this, but at the same time being that we live in such a diverse population...this is used a lot and people really don't care around here. Honestly, if I was with a group of friend's who were all Asian and someone was trying to find me, I could care less if someone said "She's the white girl over there". If I'm looking for someone in an emergency, and the description "she's the one with darker skin" was the only thing I could say to find that person in 5 seconds flat, you best know I will use it. I am proud of who I am...eye color, hair color, and that comes with skin color. Everyone should be, so I honestly don't understand why some people are so "offended" when skin color is used to describe someone else when we all should just be proud of who we are. Maybe it's just this area...but around here, people just aren't all about the 'extreme PC-ness'. I think sometimes when people get too extreme about things like this, it tends to do the opposite of the original intention.

 

I can see your point. I don't think anyone in that situation would question the need to use skin color in that way.

I think the problem with using skin color as a descriptive focus is apparent when you hear something like, "The doorbell rang and I went to see who it was. There was a black man standing there and I almost didn't open the door! Then I saw he had a couple young boys with him, so I thought it was safe. He turned out to be really nice." There are just too many things wrong with this that I dare not even begin to dissect it....and unfortunately, yes, that was a real quote from a person who doesn't think they are prejudiced. :roll: This person would not have thought twice about opening the door for a man of any other ethnicity, nor would this person have told me the color of the skin. They really do assume that African-American men are criminals and all they saw at their door was a "black man" and they were scared.

 

I agree with Brooke. One day while I was leaving the grocery store, there were a couple of African-American male teenagers running for the bus. This older woman (white) started screaming help, help they‘re going to rob me. We were all thinking OMG someone is getting robbed call the police. She really thought they were coming to rob her. We looked over and saw the 4 guys running for a bus that was pulling off. They weren't even going in her general direction.

I have seen people clutch purses, pull kids behind them, avoid eye contact, refuse to speak, all sorts of things. I do notice that it happens more with African-American males than females. I have never personally had that kind of experience but I have had other ones that are in line with the assuming African-Americans are criminals.

 

I will grip my purse tighter, too. But I'd do it for ANY group of guys, especially if they looked grungy and had their jeans half falling off, don't matter if they were black or white. I've no doubt this lady over-reacted, but you don't know she wouldn't have reacted the same way for a group of white guys. I lock my doors when I leave the church, especially at night. Not because I'm driving through a "black" neighborhood, but because I'm driving through a "dangerous" neighborhood.

When my little brother was attending Wheaton College, he had a friend who was doing some kind of mission-type work in a black area of Chicago in connection with the college. Michael and another friend dropped this guy off, then drove off. They realized he had forgotten his clothes (he was staying the night), so they drove back around and pretty much threw the brown grocery sack with the clothes into the guy's waiting arms. The police saw that, pulled my brother over, and yanked him and his friend out of the car and started searching them. Why? Because they were white and there's only "one reason" white boys would be in that neighborhood....