race

The other day I made the comment to Svend that I feel like whites are trying to teach their children to not be racists but blacks don't. I see the way the black children look at my kids... like meat. They are rude to them and laugh as they walk by... and they don't do it to my children's black friends.

Yesterday was pure confirmation of this.  I was standing outside watching my kids and a young man walked by while talking to his friend. He said "man! why you talking like a white lady?"  The girl shrugged him off and took off.  There was another young man by me who was watching his little brother while he played with Bergen. The comment made him look at me and then squirm in his seat.  I just smiled and laughed a bit. The kid who made the comment came by and looked at the kid next to me who was giving him a "look."  The kid said "WHAT?"  and the other just shook his head. THe kid looked at me and I waited. I said "oh sorry, did you not notice I was white?" and laughed.  He said "I didn't mean no disrespect." I told him I knew that and just thought it was funny.

So...now it's about an hour later. I'm still outside watching my kids. All four of them are out playing around with the other kids.  Tally is riding her bike on the sidewalk and slows down to see Brooklyn.  The original kid says to her (I'm about 15 feet away) "Hey! What's your name?"  She looks at the sky and then gets off her bike , turns her body away from the kid and bends down to talk to Brooklyn.  I thought this was good because have told her time and time again not to talk to or play with the big kids.  There are aLOT of teenagers that hang around with the little kids and it makes me very uncomfortable. This young man gets up and walks directly to me. He says, to my face and without missing a beat "excuse me, I just told your daughter to not run over me because I was sitting right there and she was on her bike and she said 'I can't talk to you because you're black."  WHAT?! Number 1. The kid was on the grass and Tally was on the side walk. Number 2. The kid never said that to her and Number 3. Tally never responded like that!

I told him I saw the whole thing and that wasn't what happened but told him I would ask her. I told him before  I did that he should know that she is not allowed to talk to kids older than her and she did exactly what she should have done by not responding to him. I asked him how old he was. 12.  I went and talked to Tally...who told me exactly what I'd seen.  I went back to the kid. His friends were saying sorry and that he was begin racist. He said my 7 year old daughter was a racist. I reminded him of what he'd said about white people earlier.  I told him she was not being racist. I told him he was 12 years old and too old to be talking to a 7 year old and I 'd better not catch him talking to my children again. I told him he needed to grow up a bit and not accuse children of things they didn't do.  What a brat. Here I am teaching my children to be color blind because we have such a "racist" issue in this country...but it's not whites that are racist.