It’s both sad (because of the backlash) and yet hopeful to me that a globally successful business is propelling the discussion around racial injustice.  I would almost feel bad for all those promising to boycott Nike, except for the fact that maybe with fewer people shopping in my area, there might be size 8 shoes still on the shelves for me!

That aside, the whole point of this issue has nothing to do with Nike or Kaepernick and everything to do with the fact that it’s time to start treating people with brown skin as humans. In an effort to make sure that my boys are in a good school district that can meet their varying behavioral and learning needs, I have chosen (for now) to live in an area that happens to be primarily white. It’s a choice that doesn’t always sit well with me because I yearn for more diversity (though my immediate neighborhood has families from Turkey, Russia, Ecuador and South Korea living together). So, every year I intentionally enroll my biracial children in a summer day camp within the city limits that serves primarily African American kids.

The first few days are a bit of a shock to them. Mr. Ornery came home that first Monday afternoon begging me to take him to Target to get a ball cap. Not thoroughly understanding the importance to him, I brushed it aside as we moved along to some evening sports activity or another. The next evening he continued to insist that he needed a new cap so off to Target we went. But I knew in my heart that he wouldn’t find what he needed in Target. In our “white neighborhood” all-purpose store he was not going to find the ethnic fashion apparel he eagerly sought. He also wasn’t going to find someone who knew how to braid his ringlet hair into cornrows at our “white neighborhood” SuperCuts.

What he was searching for was a better understanding of his identity. He was trying to figure out what part of him was brown skin and what part of him reflected the whiteness he saw all around. He searched for answers in outward appearances without thinking of the within.

“Why do so many of those kids at camp have brown skin?” he asks. “Why was like everyone in the Black Panther movie brown?”  Eventually, my answer became, “You know what? If you look at all the people in the entire world, most of them have brown skin. It’s just that it’s different where we live so we sometimes forget that. What matters is what’s inside people. How they act. How they treat others.”

My heart breaks at the continued discrimination and injustice. My heart breaks that people continue to judge others based on color, appearance, physical form. Bias is within all of us, but we are in control of our responses and our actions. We have a choice to be kind.

Mr. Ornery got a new ball cap. He wore it for two days. Mr. Ornery got cornrows put in his hair at a salon within the city. He wore it that way for three days (some of his hair was too short so it only was braided halfway). Mr. Ornery and his brothers will continue to wrestle with what it means to have brown skin in a country that can’t handle differences. They will search to find where they fit in and how to handle the pain of judgement.

I certainly don’t have all the answers. But I will continue to look for opportunities to talk with others and listen to others who are different from me in many ways. And I will continue to seek opportunities to do the same with my boys and encourage them to learn and grow in acceptance and wisdom.

Because I believe that we are all created by and loved by an amazing God. And we should show the same to others.