by Kimberly Coleman of Mom in the City
As a Black woman, I feel very fortunate to be happily married to an amazing man. He happens to be Black too. (Yes, contrary to media portrayals, there are plenty of happily married Black women who are married to Black men!) We have two great little boys who definitely keep me on my toes – physically and mentally. Sometimes, I must admit that my oldest son Michael (6) leaves me at a loss for words. A perfect example is the day that we were talking about “crushes” and he casually mentioned that he would never fall in love with a brown girl when he grew up.” What?!
First of all, when did kids start getting crushes at such young ages? My three year old son Sean casually mentioned that he had a crush…on Dora. Me: “Do you want to watch Dora?” Sean: “Yes…since I have a crush on her.” Okay…innocent enough. As a friend noted, “at least he picked a smart bilingual girl to be crushing on”. I digress, so let me get back to Michael…
Recently, Michael has had a couple of crushes. I must say that he does have good taste. One of the girls was beautiful, smart and kind. (I don’t know the other girl.) When I asked what he liked about the girl that I know, he said “she’s beautiful”. I asked him who else he thought he was beautiful and he told me about the other girl too. As he described her, I realized that like the first girl, they were White girls who looked like the love interests on his favorite Disney show, “The Suite Life on Deck”. I casually asked, “So are there any brown or Black girls that you think are beautiful?” He was quick to say, “Yes” and then he shared some. “But” he added “I’m not going to fall in love with anyone brown.” When I asked why not, he responded that he didn’t know. He just wasn’t going to. Huh? Here’s the thing. I don’t care who Michael ends up loving. That’s not my issue. Rather, I was dumbfounded by the fact that at the age of six he had already written off a large group of potential love interests…including the racial group that he was born into!
Later that night when Michael was asleep, I talked about our conversation with my husband. I expressed how I didn’t “get it”. Ever the voice of reason, my husband helped me to realize that none of the kid shows that our kids watch ever portray the Black girl as the love interest. If there is a Black girl in the show, she is usually the side-kick to the love interest. Kids are impressionable. Although my boys see my husband and me in a happy marriage, they don’t really relate to us right now. They relate more to Zack and Cody and the other Disney channel kids. Argh.
The conversations with my son and my husband were a great wake-up call for me. We don’t let our kids watch a boat load of television anyway, but I have to be even more deliberate about what I allow them to watch. After much thought, my husband and I couldn’t even think of one kid-friendly show on television that portrays brown and Black girls/teens (not married women) in a romantic light. At least we had The Cosby Show when we were growing up! Between commercials (which lead to “I want, I want, I want”) and the lack of realistic class and racial representation, we might just end up only allowing the kids to watch videos and DVDs on our television!
What are some of the shows or videos that you allow your kids to watch that represent kids of color well?
