Next thing I know, she says very seriously, "I wish I was black." When I asked her why, she said, "because I don't want to be the same as one of the bad people."
Then she mentioned that her skin is actually orange, not white. I said to think about her friend Hyltin's skin and what color her skin really is. "Brown, not black."
By the end of the conversation, Brian told me I'm never allowed to teach history to a child again, because I made white people sound so awful and now Addie is traumatized that she's white. I was just trying to make sure she understood how horrible prejudice and discrimination is. I think she got the point.
And yes, we did correct her several times that his name was actually Martin Luther King Jr.
2 comments:
I had to share this with Jake and Gwen. What a little sweethearat my Addie is, what a caring, loving, empathetic little girl. No wonder I love her so.
You know, that's an interesting and ongoing issue in teaching American racial history: white folks just keep looking bad in it. I'm glad you had the discussion, and if it helps her understand that it wasn't all bad white people, you could point out that there were lots of white folks who went south to march with Dr. King and put their own lives on the line. But there's no way around the fact that it was white folks who were at the top of the racist system, and we their descendants have to live with that. I tell my students, sometimes, that if they feel bad about it, they should strive to work to improve the racial situation in our time.
love,
Onkteb
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