A Hard Question

In the backseat of my car there is a pile of papers and projects that Jayla has done at school over the past few months. For some reason, whenever they are given to me, I never take them out of the car. So, we ride around with them until someone else has to ride in the backseat of my car. At that point, I throw them all away.

Many times when we’re in the car, Jayla will ask for one of her papers to study while we’re in the car. About two weeks ago she did this on the way to school one morning. She’s usually specific about which paper she wants to look at and this particular morning it was a picture of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now, because I rarely even look at the stuff that they give me at her school, I didn’t realize that they had colored a picture of him on his birthday. Cool, I thought, when I saw it that day.

So, we were sitting at the stoplight that we sit at every morning and usually we talk about the gas station and the Walgreens that are on that corner. Well, this particular morning, she said, “I got a picture of a man”. I replied, “Yes – and his name is Martin Luther King”. She repeated his name back to me. And then it happened…

Jayla wanted to know more about the man whose picture she was holding. And I had my first parenting moment where I wasn’t quite sure what to say. I wanted her to get the impression that he was an important man but, I did not want to get caught up in a discussion about race and inequality. So, I ended up telling her that he was a man that fought so that Jayla could go to her school. She said okay and moved on in her happy little world.

I think that was the best answer that I knew how to give a two-year-old. And I know that there is going to come a day when I will have to explain the history of race relations in this country and how people will automatically assume certain things about her as a person based on her ethnicity…and gender even. I will also teach her that she is not a victim of her demographics. And I will have to tell her how special and unique all people are and teach her to respect and appreciate those differences. And I will have to model that attitude for her.

I will also have to tell her about how her grandmother (my mother) had the highest GPA in her high school graduating class and was not awarded the honor of valedictorian. Instead, the school system did not acknowledge a valedictorian that year – 1972 – the year that the first integrated class graduated from that rural high school in Mississippi. And I will have to tell her about how her grandfather (my father) was expelled from his first attempt at college for being a “radical” and leading race-related protests. And how there is no evidence of him almost completing a degree at that college because his records were burned. And I will have to tell her about Henry Odom, her great-great-great-great grandfather, an escaped slave from North Carolina, who eventually traveled to Mississippi where he purchased the land that my parents currently live on.

And I am sure a lot of hard questions will come out of these conversations. But, it would be irresponsible of me to not tell her about these things. And I know I won’t have all of the perfect answers but, I don’t think the man in the picture did either…and look at the impact he made…