Several months (maybe a year?) ago, there was a viral video going around of two toddlers. In the video, they saw each other on the street, ran into each other’s arms and hugged. The caption read, something like “These two friends had not seen each other in a while.” They were so obviously happy to see each other and spend time together that it made even this old, hardened heart, open up a bit, and I smiled.
Then I read the comments.
You see, it happened that one of the toddlers was white and the other one was black. I hadn’t really paid any particular attention to that detail - after all, it was just a video of two cute kids who were obviously happy to be with each other again, and the caption for the video said nothing about race so it didn’t even dawn on me that this video might have racial undertones - but, I can be kinda slow like that. Still, 99% of the comments to the post were one variation or another of: “Racism is taught.”
I furrowed my brow at this and thought to myself. “The only ones pointing out the race of these two toddlers are the people who made these comments.”
If when you see two children playing with each other, the first thing you notice and comment on is the race of the children then consider that, perhaps, you are the one doing the teaching.