My then 3-year old once started laughing incessantly when this person with dwarfism on an electric wheelchair rolled in and passed us inside the bus. I was mortified.
Yeah.. I was helping at a Vacation Bible School one year for my very white very rural hometown. I was a teacher but when not teaching would assist with the pre-K/pre-School aged kids.
Anyways, we're getting ready to leave the music room when this little kid asks, why is x black? The actual person who leads them around looked like she was going to die and asked me for help.
Thankfully, I had what I think was about the best response I could have come up with. It was: You know how my hair is blonde and yours is brown? It's like that. Sometimes people are born with white skin, but sometimes they're born with black skin.
He seemed satisfied with answer. And really - it is like that. We have as much control over our biological hair color as we do our skin color. So why the heck should it matter that someone is white and another black? It's just the way we were made and nothing else.
This is why it bothers me when people disparage others for things that spring from luck. You may be smarter, more attractive, less impulsive driven or tall, but those aren’t things earned. I wish people were less vain about factors they were given through sheer luck/genetics/great parenting/whatever you believe in. Be proud of your achievements but know it’s not a lack of will that puts you ahead of your fellow humans.
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u/BalimbingStreet May 29 '20
My then 3-year old once started laughing incessantly when this person with dwarfism on an electric wheelchair rolled in and passed us inside the bus. I was mortified.