Like if she didn't get arrested and obeyed the bus rules.
Shamelessly stolen from a Quora comment that I can't find again.
I was reading this kid's book about Rosa Parks to my kid the other day, who is 3. When I got to the part where the book begins to explain how there's differences for whites and blacks in her time, such as with buses, my kid was super confused. It's like never in a million years did any of this skin colour stuff cross the mind.
It felt dirty explaining it. It felt awful having to explain to their tabula rasa mind that context of skin colour is even a thing. It felt horrible to explain this concept because it's almost like when I explained it, this idea was now transferred where it did not exist before. Like creating racism, and it's a horrible, horrible feeling.
I love teaching stuff, it's so amazing explaining what grass is or why the rain falls from the clouds but to explain something so ugly, and to be the first person to essentially plant that concept into their brain as a reality is so unbearably awful.
Obviously it's better to talk about it and share with them some basics even at this age, and better they hear it from me than someone actually being racist but man, is this painful.
Just wanted to share.
