My Martin Luther King Jr. Day Story

When Lily was little I sent her to Elite Private School. I viewed it as a safe environment with every possible extracurricular on campus. It was my hope I could leave her there from 8 AM until 6 PM, where she would thrive, and I wouldn’t have to worry.

If there were 100 kindergartners, I am going to say 10 were African American. Lily went to after care. I am guessing six of the African American children went to aftercare. Most of the white children did not, they had stay-at-home moms. From the first day I picked Lily up I saw the children divided into groups, white and African American. They did this on their own. Lily was always with the African American children. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t have a problem with it. I wanted to ask her about it, but I couldn’t figure out a way to do that, without her thinking she was doing something wrong. What I really wanted to know was, “What’s wrong with the white kids? Why don’t you play with them?” Lily was happy with her aftercare group. I didn’t ask. Why create a problem where there is none?

On the Friday before MLK, Lily got in the car. She said she learned about Martin Luther King Jr. in school. I nodded. She asked if I knew at one time black people and white people were not allowed to sit next to each other on the bus, or eat together in a restaurant, or use the same bathroom. I knew. Lily was really angry and emotional. She shouted at me, “Why did YOU not tell me this?” I was startled by her emotionalism over historic segregation. I said it never came up. It was not information I meant to withhold. “DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS????” She shouts angrily. What? “It means if we lived back then, we couldn’t sit together. We couldn’t be together.” I was baffled. “Your father is not African American.” I told her. “Both your parents are white. You are white. You and I would ALWAYS be together.”

Call me stupid, Lily wrote a Facebook post in the past month. She posted a video about the growth of skin lightening products. She spoke of receiving a couple dolls as gifts. I remember them well. My sister-in-law, Pilar, gave Lily a Latina Barbie. Lily hated it. She cried. My friend Clara, gave Lily a Native American, American Girl Doll. Lily burst into tears. Pilar and Clara are Hispanic. The difference between Lily, Pilar and Clara is Pilar and Clara’s mothers were Hispanic. I am going to guess, when they were little, they had a preference for dolls that looked like them, as opposed to blonde Barbie. Lily gave the dolls away. Lily said watching the skin lightening video brought those dolls to mind. The dolls made her angry because Lily wanted to look like her Mom.

Lily is half Armenian. Her father, and both his parents, were born in the United States, but all his grandparents were born in Armenia, they may technically have been born in Turkey, but they were still Armenian, it works like that, really.

Lily said when people meet her in person they comment she is tanner than she looks in pictures. That’s because many of her pictures are digitally altered, lightened, to make her “more beautiful”. The skin lightening products got her thinking how absurd and unnecessary that is, a way to make people feel badly about themselves, particularly when Lily, personally, prefers being tan. Lily said from now on, when she edits her own pictures she is going to stop lightening her skin color because black and brown are also beautiful.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist Minister. He preached equality and love, regardless of skin color. That really ought to be easy, a no brainer.