Guess what color?

So, I went into work today (Yes, Saturday... I like my job, so this doesn't bother me), and we were testing a lovely 8 year old boy. After the tests were over, this boy and I sat down in another room while mom and the testers went over the test.

So anyway, the boy and I started talking.

"D'yu no Martin Luther King?" He asks me, his English is seriously mangled, though his mother's English is fine.

"Of course,"

"He has skin like me." The boy replies.

"Yep, and he did a lot of good things for people a long time ago." I say.

"Iz because white people don li' black people."

This kid is 8... The wierdest thing is, he has no idea what he's talking about. He says it with a smile, chatting away with me happily. He doesn't think I hate HIM, he thinks those "White People" (People who paint themselves with white wall paint) hate "Black People" (People who paint themselves with black wall paint). It's all about those other people... not us, in the room...

Man, it's gonna suck when he finally puts 2 and 2 together.

Who it's really going to hurt is his white friends who will suddenly become targets of anger and resentment that isn't even theirs. Heck, I'm 40 years old and it's not even MY generation who did this... much less this little rugrat who is innocent and adorable and hasn't a trouble in the world...

I told him about going to Japan, I told him about finding out that Japanese are exactly the same inside. In our hearts. People are people.

I hope that helps him when things turn ugly for him.

His accent (Obviously not pulled from his mother) is going to be the worst part; because he's not an idiot (He's very smart) but he sounds uneducated, or undereducated... He's going to have the hardest time getting a job, which he'll blame on racism, which will feed his hate...

Man, it's so sad, too... he has a lot of potential.

Potential that is already poisoned.