In recent light of the George Zimmerman case in Florida, my heart has been saddened (once again) by the division in this country. "Divided States of America" seems a more accurate description.
My family lives in rural town, America. While there is EXTREME poverty and socio-economic diversity, there is little racial diversity where we live. Sometimes this bothers me as I want to expose my children to ALL of God's creation. Not long ago, I heard myself say to a friend, "I'm glad my kids don't see color". But as soon as I said this, it didn't settle within my spirit b/c I knew that wasn't an accurate description of what I really have taught them. Rather it was a catchy phrase I've heard white people toss around as if it was a really positive aspect to their parenting. But that phrase definitely went out the window when last week my kids and I were in Walmart and my daughter, with much excitement in her voice, said, "Look Mom! She has beautiful brown skin!" Color blind? I think not. But she was clearly CELEBRATING our differences which to me is far better than IGNORING them, right?
Which raises the question:
Raising Kids to be "Color-Blind": Good or Not so Good?
Raising Kids to be "Color-Blind": Good or Not so Good?
Sometimes our differences are what divide us instead of what brings us closer to one another. Even so, acknowledging them (our differences) is also a chance for us to celebrate those differences and to teach our children that beautiful skin (regardless of the color) is beautiful because, while it should not define them, it is very much a part of who they are.
I personally, don't have the goal of raising a COLOR BLIND child. In my home, we choose to approach "race" differently...how? By not PRETENDING like there is no such thing as "color". That, to me, is just plain ludicrous. But we most definitely do not FOCUS on COLOR...we focus on the HEART of people. We talk about how beautiful God's creation is, how we all have differences that make up His gorgeous RAINBOW of humankind. But underneath His "Rainbow", we're all the same...sinners who need Jesus. As my missionary sister once said while living in Ghana, West Africa..."Everyone's poop smells the same!" And Christ came to save ALL; His desire is to see ALL come to repentance.
We fear what we do not know. So get to KNOW the people around you. I mean, really KNOW them. Get to the HEART of people. Cultivate those relationships and open up the doors to communication.
No, I'm not raising my kids to "not see color"...we all 'see' color...so perhaps the goal shouldn’t be to be color blind, but to come from a place in which color is viewed as simply being a portion of the various parts that come together to make one whole person, and then EMBRACING that person for who and how God created them to be.
Color should not be an issue at all. It should be treated the same as eye color or height. It is there it exists but that is all. As a woman who is married to someone of a different race, who has two bi racial teenagers, I find that most people try to categorize my children, my husband, and me. They seem to want to assign some sort of cultural title and have had the gall to ask if I have adopted. From a picture, can anyone tell if you love Jesus or not? Would we, as humans, have had the ability to detect the situation of the woman at the well? The answer is no. Would we ask people of our own race about their experience as a member of the race? No. Why would we do that with someone of a different race? All of us have different skin colors I may have .02 parts of melanin in my skin and someone else has 3.0, and yet another has 10.5 - it is all just melanin the same for all. In America today we have gone too far celebrating our differences and it is dividing us. We need to celebrate our sameness - i.e. being Americans, with no adjective before the word American. The language divide, the poverty divide, and the moral divide is destroying us. A house divided against itself cannot stand. If we keep-up our focus on things that divide us we will fall.
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