Cultural Diversity is Awkward

"What color is Sam?"

While on the Flag Ride on Monday, my family met me at Brooklyn Street Pizza Company for lunch. This is in downtown Tucson which has a lot of university traffic. We ordered our pizzas and sat down at one of the tables. I drank my high fructose cocktail down to the bottom and got up to get a refill. Elias came with me.

While we waited in line a guy walked in, about 20 years old, black, and carrying a laptop with him. He sat down at the table next to us, pulled out the laptop and started working away. Elias stopped, stared at him for a minute, and asked me (loudly) "Dad? What is that black boy doing?" Great. Thanks kiddo. :)

I answered him by trying to steer the subject a bit "I don't know, he's probably working on his laptop. Hey look, he has a laptop just like Danny!" He responds with "What is that black boy doing with his laptop?" "I don't know, SODA PLEASE!" We returned to our seats.

Now my son is a big fan of categorizing. He categorizes pretty much everything in his life, and he loves descriptive terms. We haven't ever sat down and taught him about race and color, but he's a huge fan of differentiating people by gender so it's no wonder he's picked up on color as well. The other day we were talking about what color different people were and the conversation went something like this.

Elias: "What color am I Mom?"
Us: "I don't know, what color are you Elias?"
Elias: "Brown."
Us: "What color is Dad?"
Elias: "Brown."
Us: "What color is Mom?"
Elias: "Brown."
Us: "What color is Sam?"
Elias: ... "Light brown."

During the same lunch, Elias and I were sitting on bar stools eating our pizza and he swung around in his seat, pointed at a man with long hair and dark beard stubble and said "That's a girl!" Wow, my son is in rare form today! The bearded "lady" in question started cracking up and I told Elias "He can't be a girl, he has a beard." Elias said "Girls have beards." "No they don't." Heh heh, good ol' kids!

To top off his exciting day at the pizza parlor, Elias and I visited the restroom before we left. I commented to him on all the cool industrial plumbing and piping lining the walls, then proceeded to do my business. I heard the sound of trickling water behind me and turned around quickly to see Elias turning some wheel valve on one of the pipes. ACCKKK!! I quickly closed the open valve and stopped the oncoming flood of water.

Phew! What an exciting visit to the pizza parlor! :)