Color Blind

Call me old-fashioned and crazy, but I enjoy using my music textbooks. I like the bound pages—the table of contents and indexes—the songs that have been sung throughout the years—the fashion of the decade when the books were produced. And here’s the thing: my students like using their music textbooks, too. They like looking at the pictures—and trying to find the right page numbers—and attempting to follow the music—and reading the information found in the book’s pages.

One of the units that is in every grade level of my textbooks is a unit on holidays and celebrations, and within that unit is a lesson on Martin Luther King, Jr. Naturally, different grade levels focus on different songs and musical concepts, but the underlying message in every grade is one of fairness and equality. I love the MLK, Jr. lessons.

I decided to do a little activity with my Kindergarten students on Monday to show them what segregation meant and why it made young MLK, Jr. sad to be told he could not play with some of his friends. My idea was to have all of my “white” students stand on one carpet and all of my “black” students stand on the other, but when it came time to actually do the activity I found myself thinking, “Wait a minute. Kids don’t always see color like adults do. Some of these babies may not realize that their skin is different than their classmates.’” But I still wanted to do the activity and it didn’t occur to me that I could “segregate” by boys and girls (brilliant, I know), so this is what I said:

“Look at your arm. If you think that your skin color matches or is the same as my skin color, then I want you to stand on the green carpet. If you think that your skin color is different than my skin color, then I want you to stand on the red carpet.”

Oh, kindergarteners, I love you. I love that you have no concept of skin color and that you ended up totally not segregated but that you still understood that it wasn’t cool for people on the red carpet to not be able to be friends with people on the green carpet—for whatever reason. I also love that you think I can’t see you peaking through the fingers covering your “closed” eyes.

If I didn’t think so before, then I definitely know it now: Kids are not born racist or prejudiced; kids are born color-blind.

Jesus tells us to come to him as little children.
And then he sends us into a world that he didn’t create in black and white but in vivid color.
…Living color-blind in a world of beautiful color…
Somehow, knowing the same Jesus as MLK, Jr.--
An impossibly complex, paradoxical,
rule and status quo defying, friend of sinners and lover of peace,
I think that sounds about right.