According to Eddie, we celebrate MLK Jr. because before him, dark-haired people had to sit at the back of the bus and there were different schools for dark-haired people and light-haired people and he said you should be able to go to school and ride the bus together because it doesn't matter what color your hair is.
As I tried to figure this out, I realized they had read a book about King in preschool. And skin color means absolutely nothing to my boys. But, with one of them a blondie and the other with "black" hair, (brown, but don't tell Chas) hair color differences they get. In fact, it defines them in some ways, as Chas more than once has called himself "the black boy" because he has black (again, not really) hair.
I wonder when skin color will be a part of the equation for them. Not for a long, long, long time, I hope. And I can only hope that segregation based on race will always seem as foreign and absurd to them as segregation by hair color.
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When Jennifer was about five, she was talking about a girl with a pretty dress, and I asked her to point her out on the playground.
So she looked around and said, there she is, the one with the red dress. The girl was an African American.
I've always remembered that, and wished the color blindness would last longer. BC
When I teach my preschool class about MLK day, the thing that fascinates the four year olds is that he died. They're so interested in processing the whole idea of death that it's hard for them to notice any other part of the story.
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