Playing the Non Race Card

My parents did a great job of teaching our family the value of cultural differences. I have always been interested in learning about different cultures and traditions. One of the best things about reading is that you can sit at the dinner table with people you might not run into in your everyday life. I am bringing this up for two reasons. 1) If you saw my blog posting from last week about being a global reader, I hope you took a minute to jot some of those books down. 2) I have had several conversations lately with people claiming I don't see color. Excuse my French, but bullshit!! Me thinks you protest too much! We all see color. What is wrong with seeing color? The fact that we all look different, eat different foods, even pray differently is what makes life so interesting. There is nothing wrong with seeing color. We get into trouble when we see stereotypes. Uh oh, here comes a black guy, he's probably a gang member. Or, look at that Asian girl bet she's good at math. Or, look at those Hispanics, they need to learn English. We all have our baggage and preconceived notions. We are all guilty of making those and other snap judgments. The point is, you can't be open to learning the error of your ways when you are so busy playing the non race card. We all see in color, let's stop seeing in stereotypes.

Final note, my thoughts are with the family of Lucille Clifton, one of the pioneers of black kidlit. Thank you so much for throwing the doors open. Until next time.