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......