Race in the 21st Century

Last year a friend of mine said, I think the next generation is blind to race. They just don't care. Not us. But our kids. It makes no difference to them. I thought about it. I didn't know.

Theo lives in a multi-cultural society and doesn't think much about race or skin color. Half his friends are half something. He himself is a faux Latino. But still, with the start of school he has started making observations. He says things like, "Koreans can't go to birthday parties on Sunday, because they all go to church." It is not racist, per se, and, in fact, in his experience, many of his dearest friends, who happen to be Korean, do all go to church on Sunday. He knows because he cares.

He never talks about race. But he talks about skin color. When he is trying to explain to me who a new friend is so I can understand he will say, "She is light-skinned," or "He is dark-skinned."

But here is the funny part. For him there is no association with race or culture. It is simply a characteristic, like eye color. And he does not even see it as a family thing. I was trying to figure out what he defined as light-skinned, and what as dark-skinned, especially in this huge, crazy mixed up melting pot of a city where we have every shade of everything.

So I started asking about our family. He is light skinned, and so is Benji. Ditto for me, Jonathan, his cousins. But my brother, he said, is "a dark-skinned" person. Not my mother, who looks just like my brother (though now her hair is gray) and not my sister, who looks just like my brother. He has dark hair and dark eyes, and he does tan better than the rest of us, but still, I was left confused.

But I like that for him your skin color is just something you are born with. It can come from anywhere and every family has everything. It is a beautiful vision of color, of race, of family, and of the world.

So maybe my friend is right. I hope so.