Girl Sees Man in Donut Shop Who Looks Just Like Alan

Here's something that's a little cute and a little unfair, all at the same time: every Sunday Eric and Ayana go out for donuts (cute), but they leave me at home because I can't eat donuts (a little unfair). I'm happy they have their little date, sad that I'm necessarily excluded, and exhausted by the sugar-high monster Eric hands off with an I-have-to-study shrug.

Excluding the donut date, Sundays are usually a mother-daughter day in our house. Eric really does have to study, and I usually like the throwback sensation of single motherhood. I know wasn't a dream lifestyle, but for a day? I'm just saying it's not hard to dredge up the fond memories. 

Sometimes Ayana still lets me slip her into her sling for old time's sake. That's 38 lbs and 43 inches of kid on my shoulder, and man it feels good. OK. It feels heavy. But it's the kind of burden a mama's body never forgets how to bear.

Anyway, there's a story in here and I'm burying the lead.

Last Sunday, Ayana went on her donut date with Dad, then we headed out to the museum to give Eric those quiet hours for playing video ga...errr...studying. As we waited for the elevator down to the parking garage, I asked Ayana about the donut shop.

ME: Did you have fun with Daddy?

AYANA: [smacks teeth (a charming habit I love so much)] Actually, a guy there looked exactly like Alan.

ME: Stop smacking your teeth. You know mama hates that.

AYANA: But actually, he looked just like Alan.

Ayana's a persistent kid. And she says actually A LOT. She breezed right by my little scolding, ran into the elevator, and kept right on going.

AYANA: He did! He was tall and he was wearing sunglasses and he had a beard.

ME: A beard, huh? Yeah, honey. That does sound like Alan.

AYANA: Mama, he did. He was tall and black and had a beard and—

ME: Wait. Did you say he was black?

AYANA: Actually, he was tall and black and he had a glasses and a beard.

ME: And he looked just like Alan?

AYANA: Yep. Just like Alan.

News flash, folks. Alan is tall and I've seen him in sunglasses and he does have a bit of a beard. But Alan is not black. Which, in my mind, is enough of a defining characteristic to make him not look exactly like the guy in the donut shop. My mind is not that colorblind. 

But you know what? Ayana's is. She's not a stupid kid, friends. She knows all the colors and she ain't afraid to use 'em. She loves to note the differences in our skin tones, and adamantly insists she's brown when people refer to her as black. 

She has no concept, yet, that the color a person identifies as means more than the straightforward, "this block is red and this block is yellow and this one is green" that she learned in preschool. To her, a color is truly just that. A color. Actually [smacks her teeth], that block looks exactly like all the others. The color doesn't matter.  

Have you ever been schooled by a preschooler, readers? Have you ever looked at your child and been humbled by the face of the future? What I saw in my daughter in that elevator on Sunday was not innocence or ignorance—it was a simple yet profound wisdom. She isn't wise beyond her years. She is wise in her years—growing up in a time and place where color isn't even a tertiary label. It is so far down the list it never occurred to her that it should be a limiting factor in equality.

Now I'm not naive, folks. You and I both know I'm writing this little story into a world where racial lines are being drawn on the daily, with results that are so horrifying that some days I just cry at the mindlessness of it all. We live in a world where we don't just see color, we target it. We draw the battle lines and we very literally shoot from behind them. Without shame. And often, without recourse.

But then the little powdered-sugar-smeared face of reason pops up in an elevator and says, hey, let's not be silly. We all have so much in common, why are we focusing on the one thing that's different? I like donuts, you likes donuts. Maybe we look alike too!

Yeah, yeah. I know it's not that easy. Except that it is. It really is that easy for Ayana. She's not making it up. And just listen to your kids sometime. Really listen. I bet it's that easy for them too. You know what? My kid and your kids—they're people. They're part of this world. Hell, they are the world in just a few decades.

Consider that world—the one without us and our inability not to see. [Smacks her teeth] Actually, that sounds a little better than this world. Um actually [smacks her teeth], we should just do that right now, because the other thing is dumb.

Dumb indeed.

I know I need to bring this home. I've said what I came here to say, and no amount of repeating myself or wrapping this up with a nice pun is going to erase the lines of misunderstanding and fear and hate that divide our world. But maybe for a day, just today, let's make this our racial news headline:

Girl Sees Man in Donut Shop Who Looks Just Like Alan

It was sure news to me.

This is our family with a few not pictured. That's Alan on the far left.