Today I took the kids to play at a park on the "wrong" side of town. Not actually that sketchy of a neighborhood but, nonetheless, not my usual stomping ground.
We were there just a few minute when a young black boy came up to us. He was extremely friendly and immediately started playing with my kids. He helpfully offered to watch one of them on the play structure when I was busy pushing two on the swings.
After a bit my kids were hungry so we went up to the pavilion to eat the lunch I'd packed. In less than a minute he was there, too. I offered him some of our snacks and he politely accepted one. By the end of the meal he was sitting next to me eating most of the food I'd brought talking my ear off. As I packed up our stuff and the toddlers scampered off to play some more I saw him share his last carrot sticks with his two older sisters who'd remained a little ways off.
While we were playing after lunch a group of young white businessmen came to the pavilion. They'd brought their lunches and appeared to be having some kind of working lunch. I'll admit it. When I saw them getting out of their cars--in their white shirts, ties, and shiny shoes glancing importantly at their phones while they walked--I felt just a tinge safer, just a little bit better about being in that neighborhood.
But when the young boy saw them he immediately went on high alert and started muttering to me: Guys! A bunch of guys! Might have to leave! Two sisters and who's going to protect them from a bunch of guys?!
I looked over to the clean-cut guys in business attire calmly talking and eating their lunches and saw them through his eyes. Frat boy types? Duke lacrosse player types? Drunkenly dragging black girls into the woods to gang rape them types?
I wouldn't have had that experience of seeing white people through a black person's eyes if I hadn't first fed the hungry, un-parented child. (He shared with me that he and his sisters come to the park ever day because, in his words, he is 9 yrs old, he did Kindergarten twice and then wasn't allowed to go to 1st grade so he tried homeschooling but he "messed that up, too," so next year he's going to have to go back to regular school. In short, the neglected child of overwhelmed parents making poor choices that the kids pay for.)
And I wouldn't have chatted with and fed the young black boy if my heart hadn't been opened, these past few months, to the lives kids like my own daughters lead when their biological parents cannot provide for them.
I kept thinking about an annoying ministry-minded meme I've seen in the past showing a child in need labeled: Everyone's Child. I've never liked that meme. I have scrolled past it because I didn't like the unsubtle attempt to make me feel my white privilege like a weighty burden that can only be shed through endless donations to A Good Cause. And, I still don't like it because, no, being poor or in need does not make a child of such little value that just anyone and everyone can/should take care of them. Being poor or in need does not make you someone's project. You are still a person--not a meme.
But, all the same, I'm now living that meme. I am now recognizing the overly-friendly child as the neglected child; the hovering child as the hungry child; the pushing-past-my-social-norms child as the sweet but untaught child.
I know myself. I know that in the past I would've used cues to shoo that strange boy away rather than welcome him in. I know that I would've been offended by his intrusion and quickly dismissed any uncomfortable wonderings that entered my mind about why he gravitated to the food I brought.
Today I was open to walking alongside him for just a bit. We shared food. I listened to, and learned from, his perspective on a group of white businessmen.
So I guess this is what I want to say to the meme-makers. Nobody is just a project. But, yes, Everyone's Child does enjoy a meal...if it comes with a conversation.
We were there just a few minute when a young black boy came up to us. He was extremely friendly and immediately started playing with my kids. He helpfully offered to watch one of them on the play structure when I was busy pushing two on the swings.
After a bit my kids were hungry so we went up to the pavilion to eat the lunch I'd packed. In less than a minute he was there, too. I offered him some of our snacks and he politely accepted one. By the end of the meal he was sitting next to me eating most of the food I'd brought talking my ear off. As I packed up our stuff and the toddlers scampered off to play some more I saw him share his last carrot sticks with his two older sisters who'd remained a little ways off.
While we were playing after lunch a group of young white businessmen came to the pavilion. They'd brought their lunches and appeared to be having some kind of working lunch. I'll admit it. When I saw them getting out of their cars--in their white shirts, ties, and shiny shoes glancing importantly at their phones while they walked--I felt just a tinge safer, just a little bit better about being in that neighborhood.
But when the young boy saw them he immediately went on high alert and started muttering to me: Guys! A bunch of guys! Might have to leave! Two sisters and who's going to protect them from a bunch of guys?!
I looked over to the clean-cut guys in business attire calmly talking and eating their lunches and saw them through his eyes. Frat boy types? Duke lacrosse player types? Drunkenly dragging black girls into the woods to gang rape them types?
I wouldn't have had that experience of seeing white people through a black person's eyes if I hadn't first fed the hungry, un-parented child. (He shared with me that he and his sisters come to the park ever day because, in his words, he is 9 yrs old, he did Kindergarten twice and then wasn't allowed to go to 1st grade so he tried homeschooling but he "messed that up, too," so next year he's going to have to go back to regular school. In short, the neglected child of overwhelmed parents making poor choices that the kids pay for.)
And I wouldn't have chatted with and fed the young black boy if my heart hadn't been opened, these past few months, to the lives kids like my own daughters lead when their biological parents cannot provide for them.
I kept thinking about an annoying ministry-minded meme I've seen in the past showing a child in need labeled: Everyone's Child. I've never liked that meme. I have scrolled past it because I didn't like the unsubtle attempt to make me feel my white privilege like a weighty burden that can only be shed through endless donations to A Good Cause. And, I still don't like it because, no, being poor or in need does not make a child of such little value that just anyone and everyone can/should take care of them. Being poor or in need does not make you someone's project. You are still a person--not a meme.
But, all the same, I'm now living that meme. I am now recognizing the overly-friendly child as the neglected child; the hovering child as the hungry child; the pushing-past-my-social-norms child as the sweet but untaught child.
I know myself. I know that in the past I would've used cues to shoo that strange boy away rather than welcome him in. I know that I would've been offended by his intrusion and quickly dismissed any uncomfortable wonderings that entered my mind about why he gravitated to the food I brought.
Today I was open to walking alongside him for just a bit. We shared food. I listened to, and learned from, his perspective on a group of white businessmen.
So I guess this is what I want to say to the meme-makers. Nobody is just a project. But, yes, Everyone's Child does enjoy a meal...if it comes with a conversation.
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