Entry for July 25, 2007

 This picture might offend someone, but right now it certaily sums up my mood. I have run into behavior I hate from children, who have learned it from grown ups.

We have direct next door neighbors who have one of their grown daughters who just got out of the military and has moved back, looking to settle back here. She has a little girl, who is bi-racial. The kids have played with "J" a LOT over the last couple of years, especially now that she is right next door.

Across the street there are three kids, two girls real close to Bekah's age and a little boy somewhere between Patrick and Mariska's age. They have just been here since mid spring and the kids play with them on almost a daily basis. I will call them the "K"s

Now I was talking to N, J's grandmother, today (after a barbering incident) and we got on the subject of the Ks. Seems J came in the other day and told N that she couldn't play with the Ks because she is black. I ask Bekah in a round about way about it and she says, matter of factly, that the Ks don't like black people.

I am not so ignorant or naive that I think this doesn't happen, but I haven't been faced with this in a long time. Partially because of where I ended up living. Fort Collins, Cheyenne and Wellington are all pretty darned white towns. But, this sort of thought process would NEVER occur to me. Greg and I have tried our darnedest to teach our kids to not see color and not base opions of people on what they look like. I still have to work on this last issue myself, but I do realize it is a flaw on my part, take ownership of it and try with all my might to not do it. Of course, this incident just sort of reinforces that when it looks like white trash, it probably is. (STOP THAT JULIE!! That is jut as bad ,even if you might be right in this case)

So, now Greg and I are faced with having to sit with Patrick and Bekah and talking about this and sort of taking away a smidge of their innocence that the world is a nice place Today, people suck!!!