Toddlers See Humans Not Race

One of the things that baffled me when I arrived in England from South Africa was toddlers’ smiles. Why would a white child smile at me? Apartheid forbids mingling of the races. It took a while to realize that kids in England see me as a human being, not a black woman. That is the natural canvass, blank.

The child grows up. Parents go to the store and buy big and small racial paint brushes. Kids are mimics so they grow up with the convoluted canvass. Racial slurs, window smashing, school bullying, kicks, murder and cross burning replace toddlers’ smiles.

As I got used to white kids smiling at me, I went back and dusted some memories. White and black kids in South Africa never met because they were born in separate hospitals, lived in separate neighborhoods, went to separate schools and the beach was divided into black and white.

Despite all that, there were instances where black and white kids met in a store or on the pavement. They would look at each other briefly, before parents dragged them along. That childish attraction was the natural canvass.

It’s still there on the bus, when kids in strollers bid everybody ‘bye’ when parents push them out.  But the problem exists: parents.

By:  Nonqaba waka Msimang.