I thought I could somehow shield my child from the ugly truth of racism just a little longer. But as a very public incident at Fenway showed, I was wrong.

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Up to now, I’ve almost completely avoided discussing racism — or even race at all — with Nile. I know it’s something that will affect his life, but I also strongly feel that it’s just not his problem, at least not yet. He’s 5 years old. Until a year ago, he described people as “blue” or “gray” or “purple,” depending on the color of the shirt they were wearing. Recently, he’s begun noticing differences in skin color, but his descriptions are childlike and precise, and have nothing to do with the over-simplified labels and complex histories that inform grown-up conversations about race. Nile says that he’s “tannish,” that my wife is “brownish,” and that I am “kind of pinkish.” He notices that his mother has braids, that my hair is straight, and that he and his sister both have curls. It hasn’t occurred to him — because why would it? — that anyone might use these distinctions as an excuse to treat some people differently from others.

It’s impossible right now to know what sort of impact race will have on Nile’s sense of identity, or how it will circumscribe his ability to move through the world as he pleases. It is my whitest, most naive hope that my son will never have to worry about racism at all. I hope that we’ll make progress quickly enough that racism won’t affect him, or that he’ll be light-skinned enough that it won’t affect him, or that he’ll always be well dressed and well spoken enough for it not to affect him. I make up all sorts of reasons — the diversity of our community, the liberal politics of our state — that racism won’t touch my son in the way it’s touched virtually every person of color who’s ever lived in America.

Source: Raising a black son in America – The Boston Globe