I posted this long, rambling story on a friend's blog in the comments...then I thought, this should be a blog post in itself so now it is.


We took Ben to see Maceo Parker last night. It was a wonderful show and Ben's been listening to him for years (at least half his life). This sparked a really interesting race conversation. Ben said, "I thought he had light skin." I asked why he thought that. He said, "He doesn't sound like he has dark skin, he sounds American." Which made me realize just how white our multi-cultural, celebrate diversity town truly is. So we talked about who he knows (both personally and on tv/news, etc) with dark skin. Pointing out Obama first (ironically on the day of the "long form" birth certificate release). Being so intertwined with Silicon Valley, most of the people he knows who have dark skin are Indian, not African-American and they all have Indian accents.

I love this age and the things that come up and I hope I'm explaining things in a way he really get "it". He's so innocently inquisitive.  There's no judgement behind his questions about skin color, religion, or any of those "hot button" topics.  He just wants to know what's up. It's really a refreshing way to have such conversations.