I was at the children's desk this evening. A small girl came up to me and asked "What color am I?"
I had a moment of panic. I am not equipped to talk to kindergarteners about race! Then I looked at her pants, which were purple, and her shirt, which was checkered purple and white. "Purple," I said, looking her over and feeling as though I had doged a bullet. "Definitely purple."
A few minutes later, I realized that she and her mom were nearby looking at our 'Early Reader' books, which are color-coded by difficulty level. The second level of difficulty is purple, and that's what they were looking at. Of course I hurried over there to talk to them, and, extremely fortunately for me, purple actually did turn out to be the right level for her.
Whew.
Did Adam and Maria ever tell you the story about the first time Ella seemed to notice race/the fact that her parents aren't the same race?
ReplyDeleteShe said: "Mommy's dark...Daddy's light..." and Adam started getting very worried they were going to have to have a conversation about race, but then she finished off with "...and Grover's blue." He decided they didn't need to talk after all :)
whoa you definitely did luck out on that one.
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