is anyone really color blind?

unless you live in a hole in the ground, you have heard about the shootings at virginia tech earlier this week. you also probably know that the madman responsible for it all was south korean. not that his race should matter. but this is america, and even though we like to pretend it doesn't, race does matter, doesn't it?

in case you haven't gathered this from previous posts and or pictures, the bf is asian. he is originally from south korea and was adopted by his caucasian parents and brought to the u.s. at about age 5. (no one is sure of his exact age, his adopted parents were told his approximate age and then picked his birth date for him.)

last night my kids went over to visit their dad for a couple of hours after daycare. this morning at the breakfast table, my little darlings were talking about something they had seen on tv last night.

ky: "there was this guy on tv, and he hurt all these people and made some of them die. and he looked just like you, N!"

first, kids ages 3 and 5 should not be watching the news in my opinion. there are things that they just don't need to be exposed to or be worrying about yet. the tv is almost never on in my home. the only time the kids watch it is when american idol is on, or maybe on a rainy day when i put in an age-appropriate movie for them.

second, how does a five year old come up with that? the gunman really didn't look much like the bf at all, except for them both being asian. if the guy had been white, would she have said "that guy looked just like my dad!" i think not.

third, as a parent, how do i teach my child not to see race? or discriminate based on race? and how do i do this when last night, at the grocery store, there was a scrawny little asian guy behind me in line. and he did look sort of like the gunman at virginia tech. and it crossed my mind, that he looked like that guy. and i was ashamed.