Dr. Junior

"Mom, why did Dr. Junior have a dream?"

I had already seen the paper in her take-home folder, so I knew exactly what she meant. Her class has been talking about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in school this week. She is a sharp cookie for her age, but this is a tough concept. I went on to ask her about the investigation her class had done with a brown egg and a white egg. The idea is that you talk about how on the outside, the shell is hard and protects the inside. The only difference is the color of the shell.

Then, you break the egg open and show that the insides are identical. One yolk, one albumin, nothing else. They're both the same. That prompts a discussion about how people are no different from each other on the inside.

(If you'd like to do this activity with your child or students, you can get a FREE printable here: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Martin-Luther-King-Jr-Egg-Activity-191824)

She could tell me verbatim what she had done, what her teacher had said, and recounted it with the usual enthusiasm of a child who has an amazingly gifted kindergarten teacher. (We love her dearly, if you can't tell.)

But she wasn't really getting it.

I went further. She is bright, so I felt that I could tell her more. I explained that a long time ago, people weren't always allowed to do the same things. Things like going to a certain school or going to a certain restaurant. Sometimes people with peach skin (as she calls it) didn't even want to be friends with people who had dark skin.

"They didn't?"

"No, they didn't. And sometimes they were very mean."

"That wasn't very nice of them." "Mom, why do people call our skin white instead of peach?"

My answer - "Probably because peach looks close to white."

 But this set off a momentary rage within me. I don't know this for sure, but I imagined for a second that somewhere back in time, someone decided that Caucasian skin should be called white because it would sound the most opposite of black that it possibly could.

When really, we're all just the yolk and the albumin on the inside.

Our conversation ended and I realized...She still didn't understand. Not really. 

Her teacher's lesson and our conversation will now be a part of her schema to help her answer the questions her teachers will ask in years to come. She'll be the one raising her hand. She always is. But really, she just does not get it.

And I am SO glad.

She will never know a world where she cannot hug her friends with dark skin. She will never know a world where it is not ok for the Hispanic boy in her class to teach her how to say Spanish words. She will never know a world where there are no dark skinned baby dolls.

This world is not perfect. It never will be. She will learn things later that will break her heart like they break mine. But for now, there is a little peach girl in North Carolina who will hug your neck and talk your ear off no matter the shade of your skin.

GOD MADE US ALL.

Galatians 3:28 (NIV)

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.