I couldn’t write about this yesterday because I was feeling very emotional and far from objective. Today, however, I’m going to tackle this, and hope that it will be of benefit to those of you who have or will encounter racism.

Although as a parent to children of color I expect - and try to be prepared for - racism, this was our first experience with a blatantly racist comment being directed at one of our children. (Far more common are the “what beautiful almond eyes” and “they have such interesting hair” varieties.) Yesterday afternoon, my oldest son Joshua (13, biological), his friend, my daughter Maizie (almost 5, Chinese) and my daughter Lulu (8, Haitian) decided to take our dog on a walk around the park behind our home. While they were walking, a boy Joshua knows from his public school days rode up on his bike and started calling the kids “freaks.” As he rode off, he hollered out, “Somebody call the KKK!”

When Joshua got home and told me what had happened, I was stunned. I know who the culprit is and know that he comes from a very sad home situation, but the more I thought about it, the more wanted to pummel him. I called my husband at work to tell him what happened, and ended up in tears on the phone with him. Even though this kid is just a child and all children do stupid things, I felt so hurt. I stewed about it the rest of the day and long into the night. I kept thinking about the fact that someone must have told this kid about the KKK, and I couldn’t help wondering who that person is. His mother? His father? A friend? Did he learn about the Ku Klux Klan at school? Does he even really know who they are and what they believe? Did he think he was making a joke? Did he have any concept of the seriousness of his remark?

Lulu, with her still somewhat limited English and lack of prior introduction to the concept of the KKK, had no idea what this kid was talking about. Thankfully, her interpretation is that they encountered a jerky boy who teased all of them, and she doesn’t realize she was singled out with such a hateful remark. My heart already aches for the day her limited experience can no longer protect her from the awfulness that can exist in the world. What will it be like for her to realize that there are those who believe she is less worthy, less desirable, less intelligent, and less human, because she happens to have more melanin than some people? I mean really, that’s what it boils down to. And if it’s hard for me, an adult, to make sense of this senseless hatred, how much harder is it for an innocent child. (As if there IS sense to be made of it.)

Yesterday, I curbed my compulsion to call up the offender’s mom and give her a piece of my mind, which I fantasized she would share with the boy just prior to outlining the details of the mother-of-all-groundings to which he was being sentenced. Later, in my more rational state of mind, I realized that confronting the mother with anger would probably result in defensiveness on her part, and that she would be unlikely to say or do anything that would yield a positive change in her son.

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