Kids Do See Color… Just In Unexpected Ways Sometimes

This is a story that I have been told over and over, and my mom loves to tease me about it. 

I grew up in a very rural town in Ohio. There was not a lot of racial diversity, and if there were any people who weren’t Caucasian, they were Hispanic. There were no African Americans in town at all.

I was about three years old when we had a missionary from Nigeria visit our church. This man had incredibly dark skin. He was wearing traditional robes that happened to be white. and he was standing at the doors of the sanctuary welcoming people into service. My mom was nervous because kids say stupid stuff and I had never seen anyone with dark skin before.

When my mom and I got up close, I froze, staring up at him.  

Me: *Transfixed* “Mommy? Is the white man an angel?” 

The missionary started laughing so hard that he almost cried. 

Missionary: “Ma’am, I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, including an angel. But your little girl is the first person to ever call me a white man!”

And that is how I called the very first person with dark skin I had ever met… white.