‘My Ghanaian friend’s daughter called my white boyfriend, “Daddy”’
Digging deep into the idea that some people just ‘don’t see colour’
Ah racism, the topic every single white publisher wants every black writer to address, and yet I, for one, remain largely uinterested. Except for now lol. (On my own terms, always.)
So, to set the scene for you, my boyfriend* is white and English. And my Ghanaian friend has the deliciously rich dark even skin tone that no amount of make-up can certifiably deliver. Her four children all have the rich skin tone of their mother but her husband, also Ghanaian, has a warmer skin tone, though without facial features that could lead to mistaken ethnicity. Basically I’m saying he still definitely looks like a black man - stay with me, this is important!
Both my boyfriend and my friend’s husband are bald with well-groomed facial hair – but that is where the visual similarities end. So it was an LOL moment when I posted a photo of my loved one on his birthday, to the group chat with my two BFFs and the aforementioned friend laughingly responded to say that her toddler – let’s call her Z, who had been playing with friend’s phone when my message went through, saw the photo and immediately pointed at it with confidence and asserted: “Daddy”.
I laughed because it was funny, and don’t children just say the funniest things? But when I mentioned it to said boyfriend, he first of all asked to see a photo of friend’s husband (lol) and upon his own confirmation that they were not brothers from different mothers, noted that Z’s comment must be because she was not actually looking at skin colours, but at something quite different. The facial structures and facial hair could be said to be similar, so maybe that’s what she was honing in on.
I sat with this for a while because it’s an interesting concept. And it reminded me of something another friend told me when I was visiting her family in the US a few years ago. My friend is from Honduras and said she was shocked when her five-year-old came home from school one day talking about “the brown girl”. She and her husband had deliberately never talked about skin colour and didn’t want their children to define people in that way. It wasn’t until the following week when her daughter mentioned “the green girl”, that my friend realised her child was referring to her classmates by their clothes and was seemingly indifferent as to what “colour” the friend was.
I’m sceptical whenever I hear an adult claim not to see colour because it’s simply not true. That’s not how this world operates – sadly. But children honestly seem like a different species. I’ve heard some highly observant statements out of the mouths of babes, including one called Angel whose behaviour helped me during a tough time following the death of my daughter after birth (see chapter ‘Stay Soft’ in my book). But are children really oblivious until society makes them aware?
In this Guardian article entitled, ‘Prince Harry: unconscious bias affects whether you are racist’, Harry speaks with scientist Jane Goodall and says:
“[When] you start to peel away all the layers, all the taught behaviour, the learned behaviour, the experienced behaviour … at the end of the day, we’re all humans.”
Goodall said: “Especially if you get little kids together, there’s no difference. They don’t notice: ‘my skin’s white, mine’s black’ until somebody tells them.”
And this article elicited this insightful comment:
In your article (Prince says ‘unconscious bias’ affects attitudes towards race, 31 July), Jane Goodall is quoted as saying: “Especially if you get little kids together, there’s no difference. They don’t notice, ‘My skin’s white, mine’s black’, until somebody tells them.”
Evidence over 50 years shows that children by the age of three can recognise different skin colours in the same way that they can distinguish between red and yellow balls.
But differences in skin colours (or red and yellow balls) may not necessarily be something to be commented on so it may appear that they are not “noticed”. But not being “noticed” and not “recognising” are different concepts.
So it is not about somebody telling children that they recognise different skin colours. They recognise them just like everyone else does. It is only when the attitudes surrounding children place negative values on some skin colours that children may really “notice” them.
Where these values impinge on their own developing attitudes they may reflect them and begin the process of learning to be racially prejudiced. If we as a society, however unwittingly, do not understand this we may fail to take the strategic action necessary to enable young children to learn positive attitudes to differences, before any negative attitudes become entrenched.
Taking no action makes it possible for racism to continue to be part of the system.
Jane Lane
Interesting.
And not to disprove the findings of a learned 90-year-old primatologist (Jane Goodall PhD DBE) or a member of the royal family (Harry), but this reader comment puts so much of this conversation into a much more believable context.
If you are a seeing person, of course you – and seeing children – notice different skin colours on the people around them, but the relevance of it is lost on little ones. Until they are older, and we teach them the bullsh*t that so much of society has imbibed; that people with lighter skin tones are superior and those with darker skin tones rendered stupid and incompetent.
As Jesus Himself said, let’s all be a little more childlike, eh?
Tola x
*now ex, but for called thus for the purpose of streamlining this story
I’m the editor and creative director at Premier Woman Alive and co-host of the YouTube show Sisterhood. In 2019, I delivered a TEDx Talk on Debunking the Myth of Success and my first book, 'Still Standing:100 Lessons From An 'Unsuccessful' Life' is out now.
I reaaaaally enjoyed reading this :) x
So much we can learn from these tiny humans