This school year has entered a new dimension into the lives of a father................ Race.
Soulful of terms regarding Black complexion:
Light Skin/Red-bone: (Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys too Halle Berry) Red/Caramel: (Halle Berry, Queen Latifah, too Oprah)Black/Dark Skin: (Oprah too Wesley Snipes & beyond)Today while eating lunch with my daughter she laughed with a peer sitting nearby saying She's red. She then looked at me and said "You and me are Red, Mommy is Black." I looked puzzled until a light-skinned boy who sat across from us said "I'm Red too !" The daughter looked at the peer smiling and said to me "Yep Daddy ! He's Red like Bebe (my light-skinned mother). My
lil' mama is now race-conscious.
It's been interesting with
lil' mama in public school as my son takes in everything but shares very little. Lil' man will tell you only the most interesting things that he experiences, while
lil' mama' gives a full
narrative. In example: The son: "Lunch was cool, I didn't get in trouble, I ate my veggies (
Political talk: He ate a few of his veggies)." The daughter: "
Ohh Daddy. We had hot-dogs, beans, and
broccoli. I ate everything except for the fruit. I didn't have time to eat Daddy. So-and-so kept talking and our table moved from Green to Yellow. I told her to stop and she stuck her tongue out at me. I loved the hot dog. I added ketchup to it and ate it while the rest of the class was sitting down since I was at the front of the line".........and so on, and so on, and so on. So now the
Wifey and I have a chance to really find out what's happening at their school.
Lil' man really didn't speak about racial differences when he was a first grade. Lil' mama, our current first grader, speaks about race in a very cavalier manner. This year's campaign of Senator Obama has made race a very interesting topic lately. Lil' man became intrigued with Obama towards the end of last year. "There has never been a Black President Dad?", "Why were people mean to Blacks and Dr. King Dad?", "If Barack has a White mother why does he look like he is Black ?" Now Lil' mama is asking about a lot of people. "What is she daddy ? Is he Chinese ? Are they Indian, do they live in Tee-Pees ?"
Lil' man is now noticing how many Soul-folk (people of color) are in a room as he enters the room. However, it's a little different than when I was younger. He thinks that it's cool to be Black "but it really doesn't matter Dad. Everyone is cool to me." I used to feel somewhat of an outsider as frequently I was raised in situations that were either primarily White frequently or primarily Black infrequently. I remember a friend named Brian who was a next-door
neighbor cursing at me saying "It's all your fault Ni##er ! My family gotta' move all because you and the rest of your Coons moved in." I remember crying to a teacher who hugged all of the children in the class except me sobbing and saying "I feel all alone, I'm the only Christian in this Catholic school classroom." Without physically consoling me she said "Are you sure you are worried about that ?......We all love Jesus, and Jesus loves us all. Go back into the classroom and stop crying." I wasn't really worried about the Christian/Catholic thing. She knew it. I knew it. Kids wouldn't get near me saying that I had a special strain of cooties.....Ni##er Cooties. I then began a campaign to get my parents to remove me from the "costly" Catholic school to the "Free" public school so I could meet and matriculate with the Soulful
neighbors who began to invade our Columbus Ohio
neighborhood. I needed back-up. As a child I always looked for a Black looking face so I wouldn't feel alone, I felt the need for back-up. I was one of the only Black kids in the Columbus Boys
Choir, I was the only Black kid in my mother's
preferred church and was always in great demand for the Christmas play. They always held a special part in the play....... I was the Black King who visited the Christ-child. The year I tried out for the part of Joseph I caught peer-related hell. It's funny that I caught hell since the part of Mary that year (of one of the years I was the King) was played by a very light skinned girl who later became my best friend. [She now has changed her racial designation from African-American/Black to American Indian (with some African ancestry) and I believe that she has married a guy from Hawaii (He's lucky....
Dawn is gorgeous, smart, and a very church-involved trust-worthy-faithful type of woman). Her father was known as one of the first Black Judges in Ohio and her mother has successfully sued that church for discrimination.] I was too dark to be Joseph, she was o.k. to be Mary as maybe no one would know the difference. I can't remove the fact that her mother was a very powerful member of that primarily-white congregation and I was a frequent visitor. She also earned the part as an active member of the youth group, and I may have been seen as a radical. I remember Dawn-
Karima telling me in one of our conversations that people always expected me to join the Nation of Islam and how many people related me to Michael from Good Times who was the "radical" in the television show family. He thinks that counting the
Soul-folk in a room is a novelty, I felt alone. Times have really changed for the better.
Raising children in today's America is different. I can't and won't give them my anger towards the racism I felt. I temper my statement that involve race to ensure that my scars are not passed on. I do
imbue them with a love for their African, Indian, and
European ancestry. I do
imbue them with a love for African culture, an interest in the struggles and achievements of (so-called) Africans throughout the world, the historic accomplishments of (so-called) Indians and a love for the coolness of being Black. It's a little difficult when we discuss and watch movies such as Ruby Bridges, Dr. King videos, and when we recently saw
The Express. Lil' mama has repeatedly asked "Why are they being so mean to them ?" while the Lil' man has heard me say my scripted statement "There was a time in America when unfair things
happened to people of African ancestry. That time is over and ended a long time ago" so many times that he can almost say it with me.
This is a new America (USA). This is a new time. My children embrace the
Red-Black-& Green as well as the
Red-White-& Blue and don't see a problem. This is a good time.
The wifey' has developed a point system to address the sun-son's third grade transition. Whenever he makes a 'bad choice' he looses points. At the beginning of the week he begins with 100 points. I've smiled and been very supportive of the process and have reminded him to make sure his behavior doesn't result in a loss of points from his mother. I didn't realize that he had noticed that I hadn't used the point system in my guiding interactions with lil' man. He shared with my wifey "Daddy doesn't take points. Maybe you should teach him how..." 
