Usually I stay quiet because I don’t like conflict, also I don’t like racism especially the micro aggressive kind, like she’s pretty for a black girl, nice for a white girl or smart for a coloured girl type things.

I also can’t stand when people speak of all white people as privileged and racist, black people as ignorant and criminal and coloureds as gangsters and opportunistic (black when it’s good, white when it’s good) it goes on, but I shall not because I know great people from most races and bad people from most races (yes black, white, coloured are not the only)… instead I shall relay Aidan’s story.

Yesterday we visited the neighbourhood park, it’s down the road and pretty. I see preschool transport wait there for kids playing every afternoon (not sure what the deal is) anyway the kids were playing and these two little boys (black – as reference, lol) migrated towards Aidan (pale skinned coloured – further reference), only to be chastised by an older child(also black) and told to get away from the Umlungu.

I was shocked because not only isn’t Aidan an Umlungu (he is at most a Bruin Ou) but I came face to face with such young prejudice. What has this child learnt, and from who,  this child who can’t be older than 5 (she says she is 5,6,7,8,9) thinks that colours should be separated (I don’t even remember to do that in the wash).

I wasn’t sure what to do and her parents weren’t there to step in, so I just suggested they all run a race (I wasn’t trying to be punny just only thing I could think of), and they did, they ran and fell down and rolled on the grass they did it like a thousand times and Aidan was very sad to see them go…

So that’s it for my racial discussion, a lesson…be careful what you say and do in front of little ones, be weary of putting our emotions and past hurt on them, die koppies het ore (Afrikaans saying which means you don’t know who is listening, the cups have ears).

*I’m really loving Afrikaans sayings these days*