Different Race

Are children colour-blind to race? Not at all. In fact, I can recall my first encounter with a classmate of a different race between ages 7-8. For no apparent reason, my community preschool was made up of the majority race, so I had no prior encounters with a minority race.

The pupils seated in my group in class were wondering why one of the pupils had darker skin than the rest of us. Some even questioned if she had washed her hands before school started and asked her to go to the washroom to try washing off the dirt. That poor child actually took our word for it and went to the washroom a couple of times.

The conversation was all said innocently, but it would sound really awful and offensive to adults. Why did we doubt her actual skin colour? Because we noticed that her palms were much fairer than the top of her hands, so we assumed that her palm colour was her actual skin colour.

Our teacher later clarified that everyone has pigments (I think this word would have went right over my head at that age but it would have been plausible that my teacher had used that word.) in the skin and that some had more. She added that everyone was different and that we should learn to respect and accept each other.

As adults, it is our responsibility to educate the children (as early as possible) about showing acceptance towards peers of various races as well as answer questions about one anothers' race. This may help reduce unpleasant interactions or humiliating situations for the minorities.