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We've never discussed race with our five year old. I don't know why. Maybe I think the longer I delay talking about differences, the longer she won't notice them. 

It's baloney, of course. Children are shrewd observers. 

Esme once shouted as we passed a woman on the sidewalk, "She's fat!"

The lady, a local business owner whom we see multiple times a week, walked past and said nothing but my face spoke volumes. I was shocked silent. Mortified! And Esme knew it. She buried her head in my leg and cried. 

She made a simple, absolutely honest (and accurate) observation. She didn't understand the ramifications. 

So, I should not have been surprised when she used a black magic marker to draw a picture of Barack Obama the day before the Inauguration. 

"Why did you use a black marker?" I asked. I was trying to broach the race issue without talking about it directly. Her answer: something along the lines of "Because." I didn't delve further. 

Recently, my mother bought Esme a SmartMat map of the United States. It came with a black marker that she can use to draw on the map, then erase what she's done and start again. 

On one side, the map is blank and children can circle the places they've visited or put check marks on the states they can name. 

On the flip side, there are different icons on the states: a car on Michigan, a skier on Colorado, the Golden Gate Bridge in California. 

A picture of George Washington sits on our state.

"I colored the president black," Esme told me the other day after working on the map.

"How come?" I asked.

"Because," she answered. 

She's seven months older than she was in January so I decided to dig deeper.

"What color is he?" I asked about George Washington.

The question confused Esme. 

"What do you mean?" she asked. "His hair?"

"His skin," I said. 

Her response: "I don't know. Orangish?"

"What color is Barack's skin?" I asked. 

"Blackish. Brownish," she said. "He has longer hair, though."

"Who?" I wondered. 

"George Washington."

What makes the conversation really interesting, however, is what happened an hour later when Esme walked into her kindergarten class to meet her teachers for the first time. 

She made her way through the crowded classroom (it was a back-to-school open house and the place was crammed with excited children and parents, strollers and noisy siblings). She pointed to familiar things to find comfort in the unfamiliar: a copy of "Ten Little Rubber Ducks" by Eric Carle, a box of hats, a play refrigerator, a zebra mask. 

And then, a poster of 43 white guys and one black man. 

"Look!" she said. "The presidents."

I was astounded. She can't read yet but she instantly knows what and who the picture represents. 

All of my life, presidents of the United States have looked like the first 43 men on that poster in Esme's classroom: white, wrinkly, male. 

Already, Esme has a dramatically different take on our country's leaders.

She saw a picture of the nation's first president and her inclination was to paint him black, to match the picture of the president she sees everyday in the newspaper, on the television and in campaign paraphernalia on her fridge. 

But she also knew that Obama was one of many in a long line of honored - white - men who held the position before him. 

I'm left thinking that this is the new normal. The old story of presidents who hailed from an exclusive club of white men isn't necessarily replaced by a new one in which they're black. For her - and her classmates - the new normal is that they're both.

So, how long before there's a woman on that poster? 

Comments

[Katie]

I love this! I love your blog - it's brilliant! I'm so happy you started, and I will be among your faithful followers!