The Human Kind

“He wasn’t of our kind. He was an African American.”

My husband repeated the sentence that my oldest had stated to him earlier that day. The book he’d been reading, Who was Jackie Robinson, had chronicled the life of the baseball player and his background. And the color of his skin. That sentence was not in the book. But the book had addressed a lot of what his life was like because of his skin color. And what our 6 year old had gleaned from reading it was that Jackie Robinson played for the Dodgers, received hate mail, and was different than he was, because he was an African American.

It made me cringe. Not that he learned about someone being torn down for being different. That, I was happy for him to read. And try to understand. It was the fact that he said, “he wasn’t of our kind”. Oh dear goodness.

I hoped that he didn’t know, at age 6, how discriminating those words were. And as his mother, I, of course, believe that he couldn’t have. But I still looked at my husband wide-eyed. And I was terrified that our child might ever use those words again, or worse, that he would ever think that it really means anything that Jackie Robinson’s skin was a different color outside of the fact that his skin was indeed different and that made people treat him differently at the time. I asked my husband what he’d said in response. He told me they had a discussion. And that he asked Barrett what that meant. They talked about how many people have different skin tones. But we’re all the same kind. We’re all human. And how many many cultures have come together to make the United States. And how race is not something that should matter — should not separate people from people in a negative way — but it still does to some people, today. A similar discussion that we’d had at the dinner table one evening {in very simple terms} after Ferguson. And about religious persecution after another news headline. Because there are different ethnicities, different religions, different views everywhere. And I don’t want to forget to talk about that. Or brush it under the rug. These are the very real topics that I have a hard time ignoring when our oldest is at an age where he is soaking everything up like a sponge.

The conversation made me thankful. Thankful that Adam had not just passed over that statement. Because we have a choice as parents, to talk about a subject or to not talk about it. And I was thankful that the oldest was reading the book. And that he now wants to know even more about Martin Luther King Jr. I had further discussion about the book with him later and we talked again about the life Jackie Robinson had because of his skin color and also the things that made him the same as the other ball players. And it made me want to find more for him to read… more subject matter that would lead to age-appropriate discussions and opportunities to say, “We are all people”.

Race is something that has been on my mind and heart a lot lately. Not just race. But racism. I doubt I’m alone in that. It’s something that, honestly, in my daily life, I am not face to face with… I am a white female with a white husband with white children. Because of being born white, I do not face the reality of my race in a negative way. I just don’t. I live in a place where the population of our city is widely segregated for the most part. It’s a hard fact to state, but it’s very much the truth. And it’s almost as if, because of that truth, I get to choose to have race as a discussion point in my home. It is not thrust upon us every single day. But for many people it is something they know all too well by the time they are six. But the reality still stands that racism is still very much alive. And so I am left as a mother wondering what I need to do to make sure my kids understand that. After Ferguson. After seeing “hands up, don’t shoot” all over the news. After Charleston. How do we affect change? How do we stop the cycle of violence? The cycle of hate? How can just one individual be the change?

It is my hope, in parenting these kids that we can teach them that everything starts with one person, making a change, or deciding to be the change. One person, causing a ripple effect. And if that person can’t truly affect change or stop the cycle, it will still mean one less person perpetuating racism, prejudice, and close-mindedness. And while I don’t know fully how to explain why people are still so against others because of our differences, I know that we can show them what we know.

I hope that in making a concerted effort to expose our children to different cultures, foods, celebrations, and the like, they will learn that culture is something to be celebrated, not debased. It is our hope to teach our children about diversity rather than assimilation. As they ask questions about our friends who have different backgrounds, different cultures, different beliefs, we have decided that we will take every opportunity to have open discussions and dialogue. If we don’t have the answers, I hope we have the right people to share their thoughts with us and them. And I just hope hope hope that they will understand that every single person is unique from the next and that skin color is just one of the many things that makes us individuals.

We hope, above all else, that they will learn and hear from us, time and time again: We don’t treat people negatively because of race. Or because of the things that make us different as humans. And when you go out into the world, we hope you will project the same.

The six year old probably didn’t have a clue when he picked up the book about Jackie Robinson that it would spur so many thoughts for mama but I really am glad that it did. I definitely don’t know all the answers but I know that the tough conversations are often the ones you most need to have. We are all different, there’s no denying that but it is how we approach those differences that says a lot about our kind. The human kind, that is.