As kids, we had no clue about the racial stuff that seemed to preoccupy adults. We just enjoyed our life as kids.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Along the way, let's never forget that once we were children and that we were all playing together without distinction of skin color, society level, or where people come from. Adults need to remember to play and to be more childlike in our behavior. We've forgotten what that childlike experience was like.
When I got near teen age, I was so happy with my friends and the African-American culture that I couldn't imagine not being part of it.
So many white kids, English kids - we had no culture.
Conversations between parents and kids are important - about race issues, about all kinds of things, about heritage.
My kids are coming up in a different time then me. Interracial couples are of the norm. With me, it's about making sure my kids understand the importance of education and having opportunities that I didn't. My goal as a parent is to make sure they don't take what they have for granted.
Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome.
I was one of the only people of color at my grade school and also my high school. It's weird recollecting on my childhood, I think, because my brothers are all white. We all share the same father but different mothers. I guess I kind of associated white, but I was occasionally reminded in a really negative way that I wasn't.
My parents raised me to not ever look at race or color, so it doesn't have a big part in my self-identity.
As a child, I experienced black culture as many people did in America: on the TV, radio, and stages.
We were like a white family from the 1920s or something. My parents had this bizarre, different way of looking at things from the people that surrounded us. I went to an all-Mexican grade school and an all-black high school, and not many people in those places liked the same stuff as me.