Mommy, we don’t like people with black faces.

“Mommy,” she called.

I was in the middle of a conversation with her Daddy in the front seat.

“Mommy,” she said again, her voice sounding sweet and melodic like only that of a three year old girl can.

“Yes, baby?”

“Me and my friends don’t like people with black faces.”

She said it simply and with a crinkle in her brow, not understanding the gravity of her words.

I grasped for words that wouldn’t come, feeling like someone had just punched me in the stomach.

In the span of a few seconds, my thoughts ran wild. Who told her that? Where in the world did she hear that? Some of her friends at daycare must have told her. Did their parents teach them that? Racism is taught.

I wanted to scream. I have worked hard to protect her from racism. No one has ever dared utter a racial slur in front of her. I would never allow anyone to talk negatively about any other race or teach her anything other than what we believe in our house…. that God created and loves all people. That we are equal. That we are beloved. And even now, I know that is privilege, to even be able to protect them from the reality that so many others have no choice but to face. I think of the many mothers who are unable to protect their non-white babies against the sting of racism. My heart aches.

I manage to say, “Why, baby?”

She repeats herself. “Me and my friends don’t like people with black faces.” She says the names of two kids. She tells me that they are mean. I fight for words.

It is her Daddy who speaks, calm and sure like always. I lean into his words. “Jubilee,” he says, “Jesus loves us. That means that he loves people with black faces and with white faces. And that means that we love people with black faces and white faces, too.”

We pull up in our yard and I take the keys out of the ignition. He unstraps her from her seat, carries her inside, and spends the better part of an hour talking with her, standing in front of the mirror. “Look,” he tells her, “You have tan skin and I have white skin. We are different, but we are still friends, right?”

“Yeah,” she laughs at him and smiles.

“And look,” he points her attention to the mirror, “I have red hair and you have blonde hair. We are different, but we are still friends, right?”

“Yes, Daddy!” she says to him, her tone of voice revealing the fact that she can imagine no world in which she and her Daddy are not friends.

“Aunt Shekka has a white face and Uncle Timmy has a black face. Did you know that? And we love Uncle Timmy, don’t we?”

“Yes!!” she replies, incredulous at the suggestion that she might not love her Mommy and Daddy’s very best friends.

We sit with her and tell her about how God created all of the races in the world and how we are all his children. We talk of his great love for us and our love for one another. We talk about her friends at school.

The next day, she comes home from school. We ask her how her day was. She tells us that the two children with black faces are really her friends. She calls them by name.

“I played with them today on the playground,” she says, nonchalantly.

Wistfully, she looks at us, her eyes holding a secret.

“We love everybody,” she says, looking at us as if she has just shared something magical.

I have learned that racism isn’t something that I will or can shield my girls from. It is something that must be battled and faced head on. I can’t hide my babies from the atrocities in the world, but I can teach them what is right and good and pure. I can refuse to let the sin of racism come into my home. I can teach them about a loving God who sent his son to die on the cross so that the chains of racism would be broken. I can teach them to love, and I can teach them that all of the faces of God’s children are beautiful. 

With messy hair and wild grace,

Ellyn