To the parents of the boy who called my daughters the N-word
To the parents of the boy who called my daughters the N-word:
I don’t know who you are. Perhaps we pass each other at the local Kroger or rub elbows at open house at our children’s elementary school. Maybe we both rise before dawn to sweat at the same boot camp workout or share the same pew at Sunday Mass.
I don’t know if you will be horrified by what your son said — or if you will cheer him on for learning lessons of bigotry and hate being taught at your kitchen table.
I don’t know if you believe — as he seemed to — that my daughters didn’t have the right to use a playground open to all the children in our community, a mostly white suburb, just because they are black.
I don’t know if your boy, who looked to be about 6 or 7, even told you what happened.
That he and two friends exchanged dirty looks and jumped off a slide-and-climb contraption as soon as my two daughters clambered on.
That your son spit out the N-word.
That my 8-year-old heard him and quickly called me over. She was upset and confused. Why did he say that, she asked me.
That I walked over and asked your son if he had called my daughters a nasty name.
That, sheepishly, he confessed that he had.
That I made him walk over and apologize.
That one of my daughters was hiding behind a tree.
That a gaggle of middle schoolers rushed over from the basketball court to defend him.
That, after I recounted what the boy had said, one of them, likely your son’s older brother, sneered at me defiantly.
“He’s just a little kid,” he growled.
Yes, he is a little kid, but old enough to know better, I replied. So are you.