Friday, July 14, 2006

Good at Sports? You Must Be Black.
I had an interesting chat with a self-proclaimed fundamentalist Christian at the local pool this morning. She confessed to reading my columns and liking them, though she was quick to point out that she didn't always agree with them (ummm...no doubt).

During our talk, she mentioned to me that she was a single mother of 8 (!) kids; four are grown and out of the house, 2 are hers, and the other 2 at home are actually her grandchildren of whom she has legal custody. She started talking about one of her grandkids, a 5-year-old boy who shows great athletic promise. Then, she looked me in the eye and with all seriousness said, "His mother says it's because he's half black."

Holy mother of god, I didn't see that coming. There, under the crowded shelter of the public pool, I snorted. Loud. Ear-popping loud, so much so that people jumped. Do people really still attribute natural ability in sports to one's skin color? I couldn't believe my ears, and after snorting, I just stared at her, dumbfounded. When I could trust my voice to speak without laughing, I told her that I highly doubted his blackness, regardless of total percentage of ethnicity, had anything to do with it. She shrugged her shoulders. "You never know," she said. "No," I replied. "Some of us know."

"All I know," she continued, "is that he can't sit still and is always on the go. My other 5-year-old granchild (a white girl) is content to sit and color." In my mind, I was still trying to come to grips with the fact that this woman was serious. Out loud, I suggested, "Perhaps they just have completely different personalities. It does happen." She agreed that could actually be the case.

Cuz I guess black kids don't like to color, and white kids can't kick goals on the soccer field.

We are so doomed.

4 comments:

that girl said...

I wish I lived in Colorado to read your column.

Then again, if I had to choose between San Francisco and Colorado, I'm pretty sure I'd stick right here.

Anonymous said...

t.
After living in the Bay Area and now living here in Windsor, you would be wise to stay put! People here are soooo closed-minded and conservative to the point of it being very scary indeed. Ms. Valentine's columns were awesome and am glad she is "here".

Anonymous said...

Per the grandmother: "All I know," she continued, "is that he can't sit still and is always on the go. My other 5-year-old granchild (a white girl) is content to sit and color."

How sad that this grandmother attributes this to race when it could very well be the difference between boys and girls and/or the expectations society puts on them.

Anonymous said...

Many valid points, and I agree in the potential problem with saddling a child with an limited identity. I was just taken aback by Becky's (yeah, you started this Beck!) drastic reaction to the comment, and was pointing out that there may be validity to the grandmother's comment. Also, my point re: commenting on a girls cute girls and blue eyes was that it indeed IS a genetic trait, much as the muscular make-up of a person is. Yet it's okay to point that out. And one wouldn't say that a child who likes to read gets it from her mother's ethnicity because that wouldn't be a trait associated with a given ethnicity.
But this has gone further than I intended, anyway. Merely wanted to point out that the grandmother's comment was as ludicrous as all seemed to be implying. Poor granny...
Now I know why I've never blogged before; I'll never get anything else done! Great site though, Beck!
I'm pitiful; I couldn't even remember my password, so had to do anonymous! This is CHLuke (Cool Hand Luke, for those wondering. Was going to do Sisyphus, but it's such a negative attitude to have, so went with Luke.)