the current state of race relations

H thinks that there is no such thing as race. He says that all the time, usually after making some off color joke as a way to excuse his rude humor. I am not sure about that. I only know that in this house, we have never, despite H's jokes, referred to anyone by their skin color. We say the guy in the purple shirt, or something like that to identify people. When Annabelle was obsessed with Princesses two Christmases ago, she called Princess Tiana the "green princess," because she wears a green dress, and we loved her for that. Her innocence, her not noticing, not caring, to Annabelle she was the green princess. And she thought she was as beautiful as Cinderella, but not as beautiful as Ariel. Ariel having red hair and all, has a far superior beauty to the rest....

She has an idea about Mexican, because grandma speaks Spanish and thinks that Papa and Om Noi and Ba Noi speak "Chinese" and that they came from a country where people "didn't want them to be free". She also famously said when we went to get dim sum, "watch out papa, people in chinatown, don't know how to drive." (something she hears a lot from her dad when we go to chinatown).

But she notices--tons of little things that children, whose minds aren't jumbled up, filled with a lifetime of geometry formulas, mpre questions, phone numbers, grocery lists and other such and nonsense, do. And I have been waiting for her to notice that people look different and ask why.

Today in church she went to the children's mass. When she came back she complained, that there was a boy that was teasing her and saying that he could spank her and saying that she was being bad, "but I was doing my job mama, he was the one who wasn't doing his job. "Who was this boy?" I asked. "Well, I don't know him, but he doesn't have the regular pink skin like we do, his skin is brown like papa's" I sat and thought about who it could be and told her to point him out at me after church.

And she did, a little black boy, about her age, walked by us and smiled and waved like crazy when Church was over. Annabelle gave her one of her grumpiest looks.

Then I had to explain to her why boys tease little girls and then wave at them later--which might be harder to explain than that God made people, like flowers in a garden each a different color, but each just as lovely. "that's funny" she said and chuckled, "why do they do that?" And then she saw her friend C_________ and forgot all about the incident.

I didn't say anything about her description of his skin--it was her observation, and interesting that she saw it as the same as her father's and groups people into two categories: pink and brown.

I was hopeful that we, who are a mixed race couple, me a mixed race person, with friends of all sorts could raise a child to not see it--and despite our best efforts, I am not sure we will succeed, but I am going to cherish the green princesses era and stretch it out for as long as we possibly can.