This is how it begins

"White people are mean," Jory stated in the car.

Uh??!! What?!?!?! Where did that come from? "Jory, that's not true. Why would you say that? Where did you learn that?"

"From Mrs. Wilson."

"Mrs. Wilson didn't teach you that."

He nodded his head. "Yes, she did."

What could they have been talking about that he came to this conclusion?

"Mommy, who is on the airplane?" he asked changing subjects as a plane flew over our heads.

"People visiting LA. People returning home. Businessmen." White people are mean? We need to discuss this.

"I hope no white people are on the plane."

"What Jory?"

"I hope no white people are on the plane because they are mean."

"Jory, that's not true. White people aren't mean." A call to Mrs. Wilson obviously long pass due.

I called Mrs. Wilson and she told me they had discussed slavery the previous week, but she saw the children weren't getting it so they haven't discussed it since. Well obviously Jory picked up something and decided two plus two equals twelve.

As I sat in my last fost/adopt class, a woman who had adopted a six-year-old boy shared a story with us. One day, she and her son were driving and her son said, "Mexicans are dirty."

"Who taught you that?" she asked.

He told his mom his friend told him. So she asked him if he knew anyone who was Mexican. He said, no. Then she informed him that his daddy, her husband, was Mexican. This information gave her son something to think about.

Why do kids come up with this stuff in the car?


We finally made it home and the discussion continued.

"White people, the color of that," he said, pointing to my white napkin, "are mean."

"No one is the color of Mommy's napkin. And white people aren't mean. Do you know any white people?"

"I'm not white and you're black. Hmm, is Mr. Will white?"

"No, Mr. Will isn't white. But you know who is white? Aunt LaLa, Aunt Dee Dee. The friends you play with at church. Are they mean? Are they not nice?"

"They're nice."

"See, so what you're saying isn't true, right?

"Right."

Just out of nowhere this conversation pops up. And when he asked me if Mr. Will, who is brown, was white, I knew he didn't truly understand this whole color madness us adults came up with. For a little while longer, my son's innocence is protected. Still not truly aware that some of the people who love him have less melanin in their skin than he does or that some have more.

It hit me how easy it is to teach a child to be racist. If I was a racist, I could have just ran with his statement and my six-year-old would have thought all white people were mean even though he didn't have a completely formed idea about race.

I thought about my friend, Carol's dad, who I think was Jory's age when Hitler started taking time out of his school day to teach him racist nonsense. An innocent mind corrupted. A whole generation.

This week I decided it was time for the kids to learn their first dc talk song, "In the Light." Granted, it's not a dc talk original, but their version is the best ever. The disease of self runs through our blood and it truly is a cancer fatal to our souls. We are truly, truly people in need of a Savior.