With glowing hearts

I grew up in a rather homogeneous neighbourhood.  My parents weren't rich, but fair to say upper-middle class with ambition and a lot of financial sense.  Alberta isn't the most culturally diverse place to begin with and when you tuck yourself in in a cozy and somewhat wealthy suburban neighbourhood, in spite of the benefits of growing up in such a "nice" place, you miss out on knowing and making friends with kids from different backgrounds.

Though I don't agree with or like all my parents' values, they stand on the good side when it comes to racism and discrimination.  They taught me to be open minded and to reserve judgement.  In fact, one of the father-daughter moments that stands out most sharply in my memory was my father telling me that I was free to marry (or not marry) a white woman, a black man, or whoever treated me well and made me happy.  The product of an interracial marriage herself, my mother had experienced and witnessed some cruelty - and taught me better.

In my fifth grade class there was one boy who was a visible minority.  His name was Miro and his parents were from Nigeria.  He, however, was born in Canada and spoke perfect English.  I liked him in the way that fifth grade girls like boys.  That is I sometimes bopped him with my book bag and then ran away in hopes he'd chase me.  Sometimes he did.

One day in Social Studies class the teacher was talking about immigration in Canada.  She was talking about how some of the people who were being brought into the States as slaves escaped and fled to the Maritimes.  This resulted in some predominantly African communities developing in Nova Scotia where previously most of the immigrants were Spanish and Scottish.  She showed us a picture of some school children in one of these communities.  It was an interesting picture to us, four rows of African children in school uniforms, looking solemn and sincere.  And then, in the back row, one blond boy, looking just as solemn as his schoolmates.

The teacher had us look at the picture for a long time, and then after directing our attention to the one blond boy in the photo, said, "How do you think it would feel to be this little boy?  How would it feel to stand in his shoes?"

I immediately looked over at Miro, knowing that he knew exactly what that little boy in the photo felt like, and waited for him to say something.  He didn't.  In fact, I was completely astounded to see that Miro was obediently staring at the picture and trying to imagine what the blond boy felt like.   I was angry with that teacher at the time, thinking her terribly insensitive, though perhaps in retrospect I should concede her intentions were good.  She was, of course, asking us to empathize.  I just couldn't understand why we had to empathize with that little blond boy instead of with the little Nigerian boy who sat next to me.

Where I live now, we are so culturally diverse that I am often in the minority.  The thing about living in a place that is so diverse is that over time you stop noticing.  Enormous progress for humankind.

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