...says the song from The King and I.
How fortunate that your father was able to get you out of that brainwashing atmosphere you were experiencing as a child.
Our family had a very opposite experience. When our sons, nor 23 and 20, were merely 4 and 1, we moved from the Washington DC area (actually Upper Marlboro in Prince George's county) to the far northwest suburbs of the greater Chicago area. It was immediately and strikingly obvious that racial and ethnic diversity had not yet arrived in our new environs. I came to think of it as 'embarrassingly Caucasian." Everybodyy looked like us. People barely moved 10 miles from their parents' home, let alone halfway across the counrty, as we had. I worried that our kids would grow up with a skewed view of what the real world was like.
Even though they were very young, we talked a lot about how it would feel if someone made decisions about you based on the color of your skin, the sound of your name, the way you dressed, or the way you pronounced English.
A few month after we moved to our neighborhood, a black family purchased one of the few remaining houses in our development. We went to introduce ourseoves, and it turned out the family had 2 little girls exactly the same ages as my sons. As little kids often do, they were best buddies immediately.
One day, my older son asked the older daughter of our neighbors a question about something (can't remember what). She didn't have an answer. The 8 yr old boy next to our neighbors' was out on his driveway - as blond and blue-eyed as can be. My older son gestured toward him and said. "I'll ask her brother. I bet he knows."
It was such a touchingly innocent moment that my eyes teared up. I thought, "Bless your color-blind little 4 year old heart that it does not occur to you that this is probaby not her brother."
If only all young minds could have the chance to grow up withou being warped by the various hatred that afflict their elders.
I hope Tyrone somehow, someday, is able to read your words.
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