When I used to be colorblind.

My mom loves to tell the below story, and she refers to it as one of the proudest moments of motherhood.  It turns out that it's actually one of the moments that makes me really proud of her also, because she raised my sisters and me in such an open-minded way.

The below story touches on a sensitive subject, but I don't share it to incite anything but thought.  Thought of how we saw the world as children, when all we knew how to do was be happy and be loved.  It lends me to believe that we are born to love, and that hate is learned.  A deep subject, but I hope this story makes you think a little bit harder today. 

xoxo.

***

The year was most likely 1993, and my family was living in the Deep Southern tiny town of Marion, South Carolina (population in 1990 was 6,564 people). 

I was in the First Grade that year, in Ms. Brown's class.  I was pretty popular when I was six, I'll admit it, and I was a social butterly, even then.  It was my nature to just be nice to every one, because ... well, why not?  When you are six, you don't really know much concrete information about the world besides which day of the week you go to after-school dance class and that recess is your favorite subject. 

 

This is what First Grade Lacey looked like.

 

I used to love play dates when I six.  I would ask my mom regularly if so-and-so could come over to play after school, or if another so-and-so could come over for a sleepover on Saturday night.  After a while, my mom began to notice that each time she called the parents of my black friends, they would fall kind of silent on the phone before almost always turning down the invitation for their son or daughter to come over to play.  I remember one time crying so hard because one of my friend's mom's said she couldn't come over.  My mom waited until years later to tell me that the parents of the black boys and girls in my class thought it was strange and out of place for the parents of a white girl to extend an invitation to come over and play with their child.

It was 25 years post-MLK Jr.'s death, but racial tensions apparently still hung in the air to a certain extent. 

 

But a six-year-old wouldn't really know that, right?

One day, my mom picked me up after school, and as soon as I got in the car, I was so excited to ask, "Momma?  Can my friend, Shafon, come over and play one day this week??" 

 

Shafon was a classmate of mine, and he and I had been having the best times playing on the playground for the past few weeks.  He was so nice.

"Well Lacey, I don't see why not.  I can call his parents and see if he can come over."  And after a long pause, my mom added: "And Lace?  Not that it matters at all - because really it never does matter - but just because I'm curious, is Shafon white or black?"

My mom was preparing herself for the phone call to Shafon's parents, and since she had never met him, she wasn't sure if she would be met on the phone with another parent completely untrusting of and bewildered by her phone call to request their child's company at our home.

At this point in retelling the story, my mom says that she watched me in the back seat as I squinted my eyes and pursed my lips, and she could said she could see the gears turning in my head as I thought.  After a few moments, I shrugged my shoulders and hands in the air and cheerfully replied, "I don't know, Mom.  But I'll check tomorrow and let you know!"

***