It is difficult to legislate taste or compassion.
One solution, for an adult, is to fall madly in love with a person of a different color. Suddenly, you no longer see color, or race, you just see that person, as an individual, different from any other. Then, everyone who resembles that person becomes curiously attractive and admirable. It worked for me.
If a child grows up with a nanny of a different race, or sees that your best friends are of different races, then they might never even give race a thought.
If we never have diversity in our home or heart, then we can hardly expect the tolerance of diversity in our children.
And if we neglect to reach out beyond our own ethnic, cultural and spiritual background, and set an example for our children, then can we really say that we have done everything in our power?
I grew up white, in an all white neighborhood. Once a month my mother would have an all black cleaning company come to do the house. She would make a lunch and we would all sit down to eat. When the neighbors heard of this, they were shocked and asked her "You let them eat from your plates?!" My mother told me of this comment, and as a child of age ten, I laughed at the notion that a black person's germs might be any different from my own. But this was in the late 1950s. Sports and media were still very much segregated.
A man who grew up in Jamaica in the 1950s told me how hurt he was as a child to see that Crayola crayons called their pink crayon "flesh colored". He said, "What of my color? Am I not also flesh?"
Crayola has since corrected that blunder.
Yesterday, my 5 year old son made a comment about someone's "dark skin" that I was none too happy about. Of course, I am not sure what prompted the commented, but, obviously, my husband and I aren't doing a good enough job (and we thought we were the BEST PARENTS ON EARTH
).
We live in a predominately white, upper/middle class area and his exposure to people of other races/religions/anything is limited and this concerns me immensely.
So we are on a mission.
One place I am looking for assistance is literature - my son loves books. Does anyone have any suggestions on books we can read to him about these topics that will help him understand/appreciate/love differences in people?
