True Colors

 The Heaventrain line was starting to fill up and I was making my rounds asking the kids if they had a good week. I was delighted to hear from a little girl that she was learning her colors at school. Her brother was listening and started quizzing her.


"What color is the bus?" She responded, "Blue." "What color is your shirt?" and she responded with more confidence, "Pink" Which she added," and that is my favorite color." Then her brother pointed to a friends' face and said, "What color is this?" I was immediately interested in seeing what she was going to say. It took her a little while she kind of turned her face to the side and just stood there then answered,"Brown." Her brother instead corrected her with, "Dark-skinned?" Then he pointed to another child's face in line." And what color is this?" She replied, "Dark-skinned." The young man seemed to argue a little bit with her. In fact her told her that he was light-skinned and not dark-skinned. Then her brother pointed to another child, she replied, 'Dark-skinned." Then back at the boy who said he was light-skinned and not dark-skinned. She replied, "Light-skinned,"

Then he pointed to my face. I was expecting her to say, "White" and instead she said, "Just like him,"she pointed to the young man in line next to me," She is light-skinned!" Her brother looked at me, then her, then back at me and smiled.  I was proud of her brother for not correcting her and giving her a lesson in race that day. That would come soon enough.

 I learned a lesson that day about being color blind vs. race blind. I was reminded how children are so innocent and impressionable. She was not color blind. I had witnessed this with my own eyes that she knew her colors. Instead she seemed to be race blind when it came to the color of someone's skin.

I was reminded of an excerpt from a song War/No More Trouble on Playing for Change and it goes something like...when the color of someone's skin is not more important than the color of their eyes.