What Makes A Half?
Just a quick anecdote today. We’re wrapping up Black History Month. I hope you’ve enjoyed some of the thoughts, stories, and comics we’ve run this February.
A while back, Melody was fixing Mia’s hair (a genuine struggle before yours truly got it cut) and I walked in with Ollie, who was wearing just his diaper. Melody exclaimed “Look at that little half-naked White baby!” Mia cracked up and immediately repeated… errr… uhh… said, “Yeah. Look at that little half-White naked baby!” This led to snorts from both Melody and I. We then tried to correct her. “No, no. He’s all White, but half naked.”
“All white half naked?”, she asked. And as we looked at each other, we thought, “who knows!” I couldn’t tell you what percentage of Ollie was White, Black, Brown or Blue. I know my Great Grandmother died with a full head of black hair at 98, attributed to Indian blood coursing through our family tree. And I have NO idea what’s going on with Melody’s side of the family. That gene pool said goodbye to chlorine long ago. Murky. I’m saying it’s murky.
What I do know, is that it doesn’t matter to us.
As we wrap up a month that is meant for reflection and inclusion, I hope my kids (and our readers) realize there’s no room for hate due to something as arbitrary as skin color. Folks, we need to get it together – it’s been long enough. I think there is plenty of room to laugh about our differences, and even poke fun at one another, but the hate has to go. [And let’s stop throwing the word racist around every time we get a bug in our butt while we’re at it – READ MORE]
*** And Mia still can’t say that sentence right. Months later, we still have a “Half-White naked baby”, and that’s A-OK with us.