Inside from the Inside

The only time I watch TV is when I have something laying on my brain, just out of sight, and I haven’t been able to quite boil it down yet. This is when I plunk down in the den; turn on some mindless chatter and veg.

Such was the evening. I’m on the sofa, Deal or No Deal is on the tele while Nate (my 9-year-old) is randomly snuggling with me, playing with the dogs or rolling around on the floor with a toy truck. Here’s where it gets interesting…

Nate decides to head for the kitchen in search of a snack. As he is making various trips to and fro, Howie is introducing the contestant’s (a black man) help team: a coworker (black man), a friend (black man) and his wife (a white blonde). Nate never stops moving but very audibly says “Huh.”

I sit up. Nate makes his final trip back into the den and here’s the conversation that follows:

“Nate, what was the ‘Huh’ about?”

“I dunno.”

“Sure you do.”

“I dunno Mom.”

“Seriously honey… I’m curious. Why did you say ‘Huh’ when his wife was introduced?”

“Well, she’s not what I expected.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s a different color and she’s blonde.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. I dunno… it’s just not what I thought.”

“You mean because he’s black and she’s white?”

“Yeah. I’m not saying anything is wrong or anything.”

“It’s just not what you expected?”

“Right.”

“Do you think its okay for different colored people to be together?”

“I dunno. Yeah, I guess so… never thought about it.”

“Nate, do think you would date a person that was a different color?”

“Cheez Mom! I don’t know! (He still thinks girls may have cooties.) Mom, I’m not saying anything is wrong with it. It’s just they’re different.”

“How are they different?”

“Well, for one, they are WAY better at basketball than we are.”

“How’s that?”

“Mom… really! You know there aren’t as many white people playing basketball!”

“Okay.”

“And they make better gangsters.”

“They what?”

“They make better gangsters. Yeah, they look better. They stand the right way and hold the gun right. White people don’t know how to do that. White people are just wangsters.”

“Wangsters?”

“Wanna-be gangsters.”

I’m speechless. Just then his best buddy arrives and they skedaddle to another room to play on the computer.

He’s 9. He’s my baby. He watches Nickelodeon, ABC Family and that’s about it. He plays Club Penquin. Surfs YouTube. Likes XBox 360 and Wii. Prefers Classic Rock music and is currently very excited about learning how to play the recorder in music class.

We haven’t discussed this topic before. It hasn’t come up. Yet, clearly he has an opinion.

I get that he notices the difference in skin color. He also notices numerous other physical differences: male vs. female, short vs. tall, fat vs. skinny, adult vs. kid, etc. I even get the ‘they’re different’ comment. It’s the ‘gangster/wangster’ comment that floors me and leaves me very unsettled.

Is this an innocent observation based on his current view or is it a possible foundation for racism or both? I don’t know. I do know that I will be finding more ways to open up this topic with all of my children.