When our son attended Junior School, his best buddy was a boy called Dillan! Although we’d never met him, our 6-year-old couldn’t stop talking about his friend. Not surprising when you consider that our son was, and still is, a social animal. For us a Parent/Teacher evening would often culminate in a teacher commenting on the fact that our son treated school more as, ‘a social event,’ than ‘a learning experience.’
So, if school was a place to socialize, then Dillan had become our son’s ‘partner in crime.’ After much cajoling it was agreed, with the consent of his parents, that Dillan would spend the evening with us. We would pick both boys up from school and they would have a few hours to play and eat together in our home.
However, while our son was excited, we were concerned. How, from the hundreds of giddy children leaving the school premises, were we supposed to recognize a boy we had never met? To this parental dilemma our son quickly applied his six-year-old logic. In a very matter-of-fact way, he simply informed us that his best buddy was easily recognizable because, ‘Dillan always wears an orange top!’
As two overly concerned parents waited at the school gate our concerns were soon elevated as we spotted our son, along with his best mate running excitedly down the school drive. And sure, enough our son’s description was correct, Dillan was wearing an orange top.
However, the amazing reality of this unforgettable moment had nothing to do with the colour choice of Dillan’s clothing and everything to do with the fact that our son was blind to the reality that Dillan was of Asian origin. To him, racial difference was totally irrelevant. Dillan was a fellow human being, a fun-loving person he had struck up a lasting friendship and racial origin was not an issue.
It was clear, that our six-year-old-son was and still is, ‘Colour Blind’.
With riots in the USA and rallies in the UK, the question of race and racism has once again become a topic of conversation. But more than issue that society needs to get to grips with, for me, recent world events have poised some very personal and pertinent questions. Questions to which, I need to seek answers.
It is so easy to quote those who rightly say, ‘There is no hierarchy in humanity.' But right now, my actions need to speak louder than my words.
Despite someone’s ethnic background, gender, sexual orientation, as someone who holds to a Judeo-Christian belief system, I must demonstrate the truth that we are all equally loved and valued by God. Before pointing the finger or apportion blame towards others, I find myself acknowledging the fact that if society is to change, then that change has to begin in me.
If my behavior is rooted in my beliefs, then maybe there are still areas of my thought life that need some re-alignment to God’s way of thinking.
If this is as a ‘Rosa Parks Moment’[1] - a pivotal point in human relations, then I need to ask myself some pressing questions, like:
Am I prejudicial in my thinking?
Do I wrongly judge people based on their difference?
Am I overly conscious of a person’s race or religion?
Do I generalize, categorize or even ostracize some people groups?
In essence am I like my six-year-old son, ‘colour blind’ – someone who looks beyond difference and diversity so as to treat everyone as a person equally loved and valued by God?
With others, I want to stand shoulder to shoulder with those looking for lasting change. I want to take progressive steps in a journey that Nelson Mandela called: ‘The Long Walk to Freedom’ and arrive at a place of true and lasting equality.
[1] Rosa Parks an American civil rights activist created a pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. Rejecting the order to relinquish her seat in the “color section” to a white passenger after all the whites-only section was filled. As the first person to resist bus segregation Rosa Parks sparked a fire for change that still burns brightly today.
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