“You can’t judge a book by its cover.” First impressions can be wrong. We tend to fear things that are different than we are or things that are different than what we’re accustomed to seeing.
Parents play the greatest role in either creating biased attitudes in the lives of their children or in stemming the flow of racism in our culture. Parents, to a large extent, determine whether their kids are going to be bigots or bridge-builders.
Children will be quick to notice the differences in appearance. I remember the encounter when each of our children noticed, for the first time, a person of color. Be prepared for those teachable moments. We may have different amounts of skin pigmentation, but we have the same blood, the same number of chromosomes, and likewise we are all made in God’s image.
An old “Dennis the Menace” cartoon showed Dennis introducing his mother to a new neighbor boy who happened to be black. Dennis explained, “Jackson is different than me…he has brown eyes.”
When we talk about different races or “people groups” we need to remember that genetically we are all a part of one race, the human race. We are all a part of one group, people created by one Creator. We all share the same common life blood and tissue.
That’s why a Caucasian can give blood to an Asian. That’s why an African can give a liver to a Hispanic. Our similarities far outweigh the minor distinctions of skin color or eye shape. We may have differing concentrations of melanin, the coloring pigment in our skin, but we are essentially the same. Most of our differences stem from culture, not race.
Parents and grandparents, teach your children that racial diversity is not something to be feared but a wonderful gift from the hand of a loving God. I am grateful that we don’t live in a one flavor, vanilla world.
“Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.”
