Tuesday, March 26, 2013

What color am I?

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.

2 comments:

  1. 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?

    She 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 :)

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  2. whoa you definitely did luck out on that one.

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