Me, the Kid and some good friends were playing at a local park the other day. One we frequent. There was a large group of kids and families playing. The Kid found another boy about his age to follow around…I mean play with. After a bit, I convinced him to come sit at a table with me and our friends for a snack but he quickly returned to the other little boy’s side after devouring all of the raisins. He saw that the little boy he’d met had marshmallows (a prized commodity). However, the tone of the playground changed quickly for me when I heard a little boy yelling,”There he is! That BLACK KID is back again! There’s that BLACK KID!”. I looked up and realized that they were referring to my kid, the only kid with remotely brown skin on the playground at that moment. My super-genius move was to loudly say to my friend, “Did you hear that?? Those kids were just pointing at the Kid and yelling about him being Black!” hoping that parents of the offenders would hear and address the situation. Needless to say, we didn’t stick around long after that.
I debriefed with J later in the evening. We would talk about it and move on to something else and come back to it just like these conversations usually happen. But, when the Kid was in the tub, I overheard him telling J about sitting by the “Lack Kid” at the park… You know, the one he was sharing marshmallows with.
