"Mommy, is there such a thing as a white person?"

HUH?!

That was my initial reaction when Bilaal asked me this the other day. After I found my jaw on the floor and erased the question mark from my forehead, I asked him, "Why do you ask?".

He proceeded to tell me how his favourite girl friend that he used to play with last year (she left the school to attend grade R this year) and her cousin (also a girl) once told him that he could only play with them if he was a "white person".

So I asked him, "So what did you say?"
To which he replied, "I told them you don't get such a thing as a white person. Do you mommy?"

And that is how we entered into our first discussion about race. Interestingly the reason for his perception that there is no such thing as white person or a black person is because he only views colour differences in terms of lighter and darker. So you are either light or dark, no coloured or indian or black or white. And him being a little Cape coloured boy views himself in the light category! The conversation then extended beyond skin colour as I was trying to explain to him that he shouldn't choose his friends based on how they look or what they wear or what they have, but rather how they treat others and are they nice to be around. We even touched on disability seeing as there are 2 children at his school with disabilities, one with Down's Syndrome, one with autism. All this while he was having lunch and I was folding washing!

I asked him, "So how come they played with you anyway, R was then your best friend last year? And doesn't E then play with S (indian girl) ?"
Bilaal: "Yes because when I said there's no such thing they just said 'oh' and then we played"

Aah the simplicity of childhood!