Typical of most young children my daughter has a fascination with physical features. Since she could speak coherently she has been describing people by the color of their eyes, the color of their hair, their size, and whether or not they are a boy or a girl, short or tall. I've never really given this habit much thought until her recent fascination with skin color.
She has a habit of grouping us at home by our physical features- saying things like "all people with blue eyes like chocolate and people with brown eyes don't," or "all the boys like corn and the girls like peas." This never really phased me (she was right) until recently when she started sorting us by the color of our skin. She has coined the term 'blonde skin' which is how she describes being white. We have talked briefly about race and when I exlained that some people are Black and some are white she countered that no one has black skin just brown.
Her innocent observations unnerved me. Is my 5 year old racist?! Why is she sorting us by our skin color? A few days ago she said "only people with blonde skin can color" as she was making a picture. Instinctively I told her not to say things like that, that it wasn't nice. But will my own preoccupation with skin color only perpetuate racist sentiment? Afterall, is what she said really any different than when she had sorted us by eye color, hair color, or gender? Ultimately I want her to look beyond all of those physical characteristics and see what is truly important. Maybe the best way to teach her that our physical traits are unimportant is to not overreact to the things she says when she has no idea of the potential offense she is committing.
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