Skin Colors? Black History Month

I can do better. I choose to do better.

When is the right time to do the race/ skin  talk with your child? Should you even do the race/ skin talk with your child? I naively assumed that I still had a window, my children are still young and probably not seeing in skin colors. Then came Doc. Mcstuffins. So I was asking my daughter why she loved the show. She said " Doc is a girl, she made her toys and her friends toys feel better and because she is brown". I was like "brown?" She said" yes, brown like me" And I saw that window being blown by the wind. I wasn't sure if she was leaning more to those who looked more like her just because. Is there a science about this? At first I didn't know what to say. Not one to let a learning opportunity slip by, I asked so "what other kind of people do you see apart from brown people?" She said "the not-so brown and those that look like Miss C "*Miss C is her teacher and she is white* I was like "OK" and  didn't know whether to launch into the full race talk. I just told her Ms C is white and she is not brown but black. Which led to an argument on colors. I managed to let her know that irrespective of the skin color, there are only two kinds of people: good and bad. I didn't know how much to say to a preschooler.

I wouldn't like to fuel the evil tweet from the Onion about an innocent black girl, all I can say is that irrespective of their skin color, they are part of the bad people.

February is black history month  and we managed to join the activities at the community college to learn about the history of the black people in the area where we now call home. It was fun learning something new and I felt shame that my knowledge of great Nigerians is limited and mostly forgotten. The stories fresh in my head are those of the "bad" ones. I need to refresh myself on the stories of the good people.

How are you guys doing?

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