A Father's pain, a son's journey

My 6 year old came home yesterday and told me that he did not like his skin because it was dark.

I always knew that there would come a time when I would have to teach my son about the evils of racism, and the effects that it has had on the world.

I didn't think that it would be so early.

I was hoping and praying that having him to focus on a relationship with Christ would strengthen him to be able to transcend racism like I have. But what I forgot was that there were roads that I had to travel to get where I am today.

Many of those roads were not smooth. I didn't have to face dead bodies hanging from trees.

I didn't have to face people in white sheets with guns and clubs.

I didn't have to pick cotton.

But I've been intimidated, disenfranchised, and even had foreign objects thrown at me.

All because of the color of my skin. My sin is my skin is what the rapper Ice Cube once said.

And here I am having to teach my son about an unfair prejudgement that he may have to endure for the rest of his life.

So for him to understand, I pulled out ten of my many books on black history, and showed him the faces of beauty, success, endurance, talent, progress, hope, and love. I sat him in my lap and told him how people who look just he does conquered many nations, contributed life changing inventions, transformed medicine, and taught the world how to love.

You should have seen the look on his face when he told me that he did not like his skin. I was so filled with rage and hatred toward the world. Here is my innocent son dealing with an unfair life. He attends a mostly white school, and I can only imagine how he arrived at that he feeling.

He said that he felt better after I reviewed the books with him, but I know that this will be a struggle for him until he has my strength and more. The best way to teach him, in my eyes, is the way my mother taught me.

Six years old, and the world is showing my son its ass. Thirty years old, and I'm still capable of showing my son how to kick the world's ass when it tries to bring color into the equation. And I will.