You Ask Me Why

you both walk up to me with your big green and blue eyes... eyes that are much bigger than your teeny tiny faces...

you ask me why my hands are brown, why the new boy on the slide has hands that are an even darker shade of brown than mine.. and why both your hands are white

You've taken me by surprise; for a minute ago you were talking about the mysteries of jiggly jelly and the scandalous science of snot.. Not entirely sure how to answer, I dig through drawers and find a pack of seeds. I tell you both to close your eyes and open your hands, and place a party of seeds in your tiny palms.

You're both excited and naturallv curious and begin guessing what you've been gifted with. You both sneak a peek when you think i'm not looking, and proudly yell "seeds"

We inspect the seeds... our blue, green, brown eyes like magnifying glasses. we notice the shapes, the sizes, the textures, the colours... we conclude that they are all the same... all equal...

I try to explain how the seeds will be planted in soil... a nurturing universal home for all seeds... that they will slowly grow up and eventually look different from each other... some will be basil, some will be mint, some will be rosemary, thyme, oregano... all herbs... but all uniquely different.

you both tell me you don't like rosemary, and that you hate curry leaves.

lask you why

You both agree you don't like how they look.

I say nothing.

In an age of covid-19, black lives matter, climate change, etc. children of our generation are at the nucleus of so much eruption... like little pebbles at the bottom of a volcano, absorbing all the lava, the ash, the smoke, the fire...

They can't always see the magma chamber, the main vent, the secondary vent and crater...

So often we push the education systems and schools to be teaching children the traditional 'basics'.

numeracy, literacy, maths, english... and yes those are imperative, but are they the 'basics'? Isn't it more important to be educating children how to boil an egg? How to make a bed? How to be more sustainable?

How to control our anger? How to express our feelings? How to meditate? How to care for our earth?

How to care for others?

I recently had the privilege of listening to Sophie Otiende. She spoke about human trafficking, about her Kenyan roots, about having a voice, about being a woman, about being a black woman.

For a long time, we as human beings, were caring for ourselves, we were growing our own food, we were bringing up our own children... and then all of a sudden we were hiring 'lower class people', 'people of colour', to do those jobs, belittling them entirely... forgetting that Obama was of colour, Toni Morisson was of colour... your neighbour... you.

We all came from the same seed.

A few months ago, a little 5 year old boy came up to me, in a fit of giggles, telling me that he desperately needed to tell me a secret... he told me that his best friend (who was also 5 years old) had a crush on me and that he wanted to marry

me.

"Miss, he likes you because you're brown."

Here's the thing... children have no filter, if you give them a bowl of spaghetti and try to sneak in a few onions or bits of coriander.. they will know... and they will, with no shame spit it all out. They say exactly what's on their mind.

1 have often been classified as olive skinned, or according to a very cakey MAC lady, NC37... all of which depends on whether it's winter, or whether it's at the end of a spicy summer

I come from a very humbled place, that is accepting and open minded but it isn't like that everywhere... we still hear people judging mixed races, people of colour, anyone who is different... even though... we all come from the same seed.

So this is a paper thought to parents... we have all seen the wave of resilience on the part of us adults... I often wander if it's enough. I respect the threads of comments and conversations..

especially on social media... but black squares aren't enough...

It needs to be more than that... and not a simple 'trend' that will blow away with the next wave of news.

We've all seen how obsessive we were with the Australian forest fires, or at the beginning of Covid-19...

keep your 2m distance, wear masks, wear gloves, and somehow although its significance is still prevalent, it is slowly being forgotten...

We can no longer ignore...

Donate. Sign petitions. Read.

Listen...

Sometimes, one of the most powerful things you can say is... " don't know, can you tell me more about that?"

People often fear what they don't know... it's a time for us to do our own homework... our own adulthood education... but also a time to educate the people that will one day become adults too...

conversations that your voices should carry on even after... till the brink where there no longer needs to be a conversation about it at all.

Like the song by Carlos Varela goes:

"Una mirada no dice nada

Y al mismo tiempo lo dice todo"

"Una palabra no dice nada

Y al mismo tiempo lo esconde todo"

Children are not too young to talk about race. At birth, babies look equally at faces of all races. It is by kindergarten that children start to show many of the same racial and biased attitudes that adults in our culture hold... and it has been proven that conversations about equality, diversity, interracial friendships, relationships etc can improve attitudes in as little as a single week. We need to dismantle their perceptions on topics that matter.

so talk. talk at the dinner table. talk about otherness. talk about those working on the frontlines. talk about identity. talk about saving the planet. talk about jiggly jelly and the scandalous science of snot... talk about acceptance. take about voices.

you have a responsibility.

As the saying goes...

"Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today"

Love is love

Black lives matter

Indigenous lives matter

Climate change is real

Immigrants make the world great

Women's rights are human rights