Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Dinner Conversation

Tonight we talked about segregation.  Last night we talked about The Birds and The Bees.  I don't know how this stuff happens -- it just does.  And since I'm not one to pass up Teachable Moments and Life Lessons (I hate those phrases but what else do you call them?) I go with it.  Anyway, tonight it was segregation and Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. and unfairness and anger and sadness.

Samuel was especially moved -- I don't know what's with him today, he's very in tune with his sympathetic side this evening.  He realized during the course of this conversation that life 40 years ago was extremely different from today.  His eyes welled up with tears and he said, "If my best friend Evan and I lived back then we couldn't be friends and play together!  He has brown skin!  That would make me so sad!"

I was so touched.  The innocence and the naivete ... Little do my children know that 40 years ago they very likely wouldn't have been born.  If they had they'd be living a very different life than the one they have.  We all would.  I am so grateful for progress and fairness and for those that fought so hard for all that we have today.  And I am so happy that my children are learning fairness and equality now; it's instinctual.

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