Should We Be Colorblind ?
Today is Martin Luther King day and we had school ! We were missing some of our friends at school today but we had a great day.
Mikkeala stayed to play this morning and she started a new sheet for the kids to sign in on.
Mr Randy cut up all kinds of fruits that are sometimes found in the jungle and we tasted them. The kids LOVED the fresh pineapple. The mango , the coconut and the kiwi were liked a lot too !
We read a book about caring for others and talked about skin color and if that should influence the way that we treat other people. I was raised in Southern Arkansas and that is a battle that I was raised with. The most important legacy you can give your children is one of love and not hate. I remember wanting ” Shiela” in my wedding and my mom saying that the people in our church would never approve of her being in there. Really ? This was in 1984. Children are not born racist, they are made through example. My parents were good people but this is how they were raised.
In order to explain in a more concrete way this concept, we took three eggs. One was light brown, one was dark brown and one egg was white . I asked questions like ” What will we find when we open the eggs? .” “Will the insides be different because the outside looks different ?” After cracking the eggs we found that the inside of the eggs were all the same – just like people.
Our kids do not notice skin color on their friends when they play. Colorblindness dictates that we should not notice or talk about race, and thus the right thing to do in polite company is to not acknowledge difference. The goal is noble: as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. movingly said, we want to judge people “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
We created an art project of with hand and arm prints. After it is finished there will be something else in the middle of all our beautiful colored hands. We ran out of time and Ms Debbie ran out of steam.
I knew I didnt feel well when I woke up this morning but I fought it back all day. This afternoon I have been in bed. I think it is a bad head cold but Ms Dallas is on call for tomorrow just in case I develop a fever. I am resting and Mr Randy is taking good care of me.
