(This article was originally published on 10/29/2008 at www.mybarackobama.com)
Today when my kindergartner got off the school bus, we were out in the yard planting some trees. She came over and started telling us about her day, and that it was the day of the school vote. My 17-year-old son – who is terribly frustrated to be missing this election – immediately asked her who she was voting for. When she said “McCain,” he actually dropped his shovel – and his jaw. After a sharp look from me, he managed to rein in his reaction and he asked her why. At this point our sweet, still unworldly little girl crumpled into tears and started crying so hard she couldn’t even tell us what had happened.
Half an hour later, curled up on the couch in a blanket and sipping hot cocoa, she told us that she was the only one in her class who wanted to vote for Obama. The other kids ganged up on her. When you’re in kindergarten, that’s bad enough, but as a parent with over 23 years of experience I know how to address that sort of situation. What followed, however, was a lot more difficult to handle.
The kids were arguing that if Obama was elected president, they wouldn’t be allowed to go shopping in the mall any more because it wouldn’t be safe. That people would be getting shot in movie theaters. And that all their families would be losing their jobs and spending all their money “on food stamps.” How do you explain to a six-year-old that these are racial stereotypes perpetuated by ignorant bigots? Especially when the children who passed these things along aren’t even bigots – yet. They’re just innocent parrots of whatever garbage is being discussed at their kitchen table.
At some point we’ll have to start discussing racial bias and bigotry, but I had hoped it could wait a little longer for this one, our youngest. She is the granddaughter of a black man and a white woman, her father is Guatemalan, but even if she were all of one race or another, just learning that there is hatred in the world shrinks each child’s soul.
She was ashamed to tell us that she had voted for McCain, and as she cried she told us she became confused during the school voting activity and that it all “felt bad.” For today we reassured her that it was just ‘practice,’ and that she will practice voting on presidential elections again in 4th grade, and 8th grade, and will finally vote in 12th, so she has plenty of time to learn how to do it well. I guess it’s never too soon to start practicing a life of thinking and considering, listening and sharing. But I guess we also have to accept that it’s never too soon to become aware of bigotry and hatred, ignorance, willful misinterpretation, and intolerance. And that is hard for me to swallow.
(c) 2008. Andrea M. Hill