Inevitable Milestone

My dear sweet, Olivia, recently experienced a sad milestone. Olivia’s 8 and in the third grade and yesterday, while in school, she got into a discussion with one of her classmates about religion. The other little girl is Jewish and she and Olivia have been in the same class since kindergarten. During this discussion, the other little girl proclaimed that she didn’t believe in Olivia’s God, Olivia countered that there’s only one God, and then the little girl went on to say that not only didn’t she believe in Olivia’s God, but she didn’t like Black people either.

Now, most Black folks can vividly remember the first time they experienced an overtly racist moment and for Miss Olivia it was yesterday. As prepared, as I know Olivia was for this moment, it didn’t dampen the wave of sadness I felt as I realized the bloom in some respects is off the rose. There’s no way to get around it, a layer of Olivia’s childhood simply slipped away with this exchange.

When I asked Olivia how she felt about her classmate’s comment, Olivia said she thought the girl said what she did because she wanted to hurt Olivia’s feelings. Olivia didn’t seem to take it too personally, in fact, she thought it was sort of funny that this little girl could make such a general statement about not liking Black people, because from what Olivia’s observed, this young lady doesn’t seem to know too many Black people, so how does she have enough experience to declare that she doesn’t like any Black people?

After discussing the day’s events with Loverman, we agreed I should reach out to the little girl’s parents, especially since I’d developed a friendly rapport with her mother over the past four years. Hell, Olivia and the girl have even had a couple of play dates over the years, and despite the fact that Olivia seemed to have weathered this exchange unfazed, I wanted to let this mother know that her daughter had come to a place where she was feeling comfortable with voicing her budding prejudices. I’m also aware that these pronouncements come from somewhere; it may be in school or even at home. Maybe the parents need to check the racial overtones they may be unconsciously projecting.

The girl’s mom made a surprising admission when relayed her daughter’s comments. Over the past few weeks, she’s heard both her daughters make mildly racist statements. This alone is scary since her daughters’ ages are 9 and 7. She went on to lament that she and her husband didn’t know where these feelings were coming from and were at their wits end as to how to address it. I asked her if other than at school did she and her family have any contact with people that didn’t look like them? “Not very often,” she sighed. Well, for me, therein lies the problem.

When discussing this incident with my mom, she reminded me of some of my early racially motivated encounters. Throughout elementary and high school I was the only Black student in most of my classes. Nowadays, schools don’t want students distributing birthday invitations in class if every student isn’t being invited, but back in the days before political correctness, I was often excluded and rarely received an invitation as they were doled out among my classmates. My mom recounted the numerous times she told me she wasn’t paying the school’s tuition for me to be invited to birthday parties. I can’t remember when I stopped caring, but believe me; I don’t have many fond memories of my elementary or high school years.

Look people, it all boils down to breaking the cycle and when these precious creatures come into the world they don’t have preconceived ideas of black, white, green or yellow. They get those cues directly from the horse’s mouth. Let’s be mindful.