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From the Mouths of Children: ‘Only White People’ [PSMag.com]

 

Few things are more awesome than listening to kids playing on the playground. There’s magic in that mix of laughter and exhausted breaths — giggle, pant, giggle.

Just the other Saturday at Maplewood’s Memorial Park, I was watching my five-year-old playing with his friends from daycare. The kids have just started kindergarten and are now split up among four schools. Some industrious mom had the idea to get them together again.

It was a great idea. It was also the moment when I saw the messy birth of my son’s otherness.

They were playing on one of those spinning things — you know, the one where kids learn about centrifugal force and as a bonus get crazy dizzy. They were having a blast.

“Only white people,” said a little girl.

I heard it, but I wasn’t quite sure that’s what I heard.

“Not you, you’re black,” said the girl, reaching out to touch my son. “You’re not white. Only white people can play.”

What to do? How to do it? What to say? How to say it?

I couldn’t escape the searing historical parallels of a little white girl telling a little black boy — my son — what he can and cannot do because of his skin color.

My instinct was to go over and drop science on her and all of the other little children.



[For more of this story, written by Topher Sanders, go to https://psmag.com/from-the-mou...dcbab98ef#.43yu1mdyt]

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