We Should Have Seen it Coming

Still...............we were taken by surprise.

Funny that last month I was blogging about White Privilege, what it means, how we should be more comfortable accepting one another and not dismissing the race or color we are to make everyone more equal. Rather to embrace and acknowledge what is different about each of us - race, ethnicity, gender - because each of these factors makes up who we are. Most importantly to be comfortable talking about it all - being able to talk about it is what will ultimately help us become comfortable discussing racism and continue to build those bridges. Doing all this knowing full well that there will be hurdles within our own family to get across - comfortably - delicately - outwardly. Thinking there might be a bit more time though.

Wrong Again!!

On our trip to STL this past weekend we spent A LOT of time together in the car - BigGuy, Spidey, SuperStar and The King (formerly known as Babers). We left the house at 7am - hit GranmaR's - hit Nanny's and as we were headed to Papa's house The King made a very matter of fact type statement - "I am black". No one was talking about color so we thought he said something else maybe - "what did you say?" we asked, "something is on your back?" - keep in mind his speech is not that clear, the radio was going and I think Spidey was actually talking at the time. "No, I am black." he repeated again. "You are black?" we repeated to which he said, "Daddy is white."

Oh. I felt a bit like SuperStar and Spidey must have felt a few weeks before when BigGuy and I were pushing to talk about sex. Now? Here? What do the books say to do? Hmmm................

My response was to show him something that was black and show him that really he is a brown color. Wondering why he would identify himself with the term black and us with white. Probably a knee jerk reaction - not wanting to divide our family into black/white, but true colors. I have no idea why I would want this, but I did. Spidey was in the back seat claiming to not be white, but really be a pinkish color - well, not pink because that is girls but like a tan..........he was happily rambling about his color. Then Spidey told The King that he isn't black he is brown. The King told SuperStar she was White. SuperStar told The King that he shouldn't make fun of people and their color, that he could hurt their feelings. I was wondering who told The King he was black - or did he come up with it himself. There were a ton of things happening at once -

Then I flashed back to the kitchen a few weeks before. It was a Friday afternoon - BigGuy and I were with The King at lunch time - Jake and Sunny (our dogs) were running in from outside milling around The King at the table to see if it was peanut butter again - and The King said, "Jake is black and Sunny is white." BigGuy and I agreed - then looked at each other and I said, "That is interesting." Knowing he was starting to make the connection of things being the same, but different.

Back to the car - we had 5 things happening at once.
* SuperStar was telling people that to talk about another persons color is wrong.
* The King is making connections about race and his being different.
* Spidey is trying to teach The King what shade of brown he is.
* BigGuy is driving and not helping me (or so I saw it)
* I am wondering how far to take the conversation at the moment.

The only person I really addressed was SuperStar. We talked - very shortly - about how it is perfectly fine to talk about another persons race or color as long as it is done in a positive and genuine way. If you are saying it with the intent of pointing out that there is something wrong then it is not nice and she would be right. However, the way The King was doing it - very matter of fact - he was okay, he was learning and looking for feedback about what he is noticing about his family. She looked okay, but checked out of the conversation. Spidey had run his information sharing into the ground and went back to looking out the window. The King had made his announcement and he was done. BigGuy and I just kinda looked at each other and said, "That was interesting." And I made a mental note to come back to it later. Thinking about it pretty much every day since it happened on Saturday.

This morning The King told me he was black again. I mentioned that I think he is a beautiful warm brown. He said I was white. I agreed, but that I was a tannish color too. He then said he was like chocolate. Yummy chocolate. Cold Chocolate and he said "brrrr". I hugged him and said I would make him Warm Chocolate. He said I was White Chocolate and ran his finger across me and pretended to lick his finger making a slurping noise and said, "Yummy". So I did the same.

One step at a time.....