Friday, January 16, 2009

black-ish, brown-ish

This is Cade's portrait of Martin Luther King.....not bad, cute. When i asked each of my kids about Dr. King here's what they said:



Cade: "Well, he's black......and he was a good leader, and then someone shot him". Pretty good for a kindergartner , right?

Shaylee: "He gave such amazing speeches, people just loooved to listen to him." Interesting that that's what she remembers about MLK..

Now for Hunter. I remember having a little bit of an identity crisis at his age. By crisis, i mean i never quite knew where i fit in, I knew i wasn't just white. I think the same goes for Hunt. Hunter, i like to say, is "White on the outside and brown on the inside" . His uncle likes to chant, "WT" (White Tongan) with the boy's.( Hey, we gotta take what ever "browness" we can get right?) I discovered Hunter was a little confused in first grade when his self portrait was of a very (adorable)dark brown boy. But i thought he had it kind of figured out by now that he's pretty white. Well, after asking him about MLK i now know he is still confused. Here's how it went: "So Hunter did your class talk about Martin Luther King today?" Hunter replies with, "Mom, wait...how black am i?" "What?" I said, "You aren't black....brown maybe, but not black" After a lengthy discussion on how black he is-or isn't for that matter. I thought we were on the same page, until a few minutes later he say's "so is it okay to say i'm black-ISH?" I love the innocence...maybe i'll just let him believe he's "black-ish" and who know's maybe the "black-ISH" part of him will help us get college scholorships someday......

5 comments:

Kelly said...

Awesome. That made me laugh really hard. I love Hunter. Maybe you should get him a mirror. ;)

Fairchild Family said...

Too funny, love it!

Anonymous said...

There is nothing wrong with being blackish even if your not. I think kenzie is just as confused. I have her self portrait from K-3rd grade and they are all brown skinned. They will catch on some time right?Ü

Maggie said...

Your kids are so cute!

Audra Bollard said...

I'm so glad you recorded these conversations. Priceless!