Beauty and the Beast

Do you prefer white, yellow, Brown, or Black?? Any guess on what I am talking about!!! Yes, it’s our Skin Colour. Imagine the creator asked this question every time a baby is made in the baby factory...  Shhh!! That’s what A thinks after watching Strokes and Boss Baby...

What’s with the colour? You are who you are and Colour is what you are born with. There is no exchange policy once you agreed to the terms and conditions.

Wait, why am I talking about this now?!!!

I was asked by my just-turned-5 yr.-old, why is he BROWN compared to his friends... At first I thought someone asked him about it... I realised later it’s his own observation. Just in my mind, I was thinking for a 5yr old, I’m sure he is only noticing the difference as in colour of the skin/hair/eye colour... I really don’t think he is old enough to judge a person by Skin colour. It is a good time to explain him in a way he can understand and also making sure, he would never judge anyone by his or her skin colour.

I explained him about different races and fun in being a BROWN kid ‘You are already tanned and you don’t have to waste time in the beach getting a tan-time’. He was not convinced with my answer and he gave me the ‘I don’t buy that’ look and said to me ‘but I would still prefer white coz my friend M is white’... My mind quickly thinking about Inner Beauty from Kung Fu Panda.. What?! Wait, its Inner Peace from Kung Fu Panda. I shut my mind and tell myself ‘that’s ok, just go with the flow’..

I told him M’s granddad has white skin and your granddad has dark skin and but both yours and M’s grand pa is good & kind. Then I asked him ‘Do you love your grandpa?’ he said ‘Yes, because he is very nice to me’. It convinced him I guess or he just got bored and started playing with his toys.

Last week for our Friday movie night, we picked BEAUTY AND THE BEAST... He had no clue about the movie before we watched... Turned out, that was one OPT movie to understand ‘BEAUTY IS WITHIN’ and timing can’t be more perfect. (I knew it, Hi-fi to me!!!  I read it somewhere about Inner-Beauty and of course Inner-peace from Kung Fu Panda)

PC:Google Images

After the movie, I asked him what he thought about the Beast& the handsome BAD boy.. He said he liked the Beast coz he was kind to everyone and the bad person who looked perfectly HANDSOME was not kind to people. I really don’t know what my boy understood.  He looked convinced finally. However, I would not be surprised A coming back again saying ‘Why can’t I be white and also a kind person’...

I’m sure we will discuss about this again in future, but just want to record this incident as it is, so we can replay it when he asks me again in few days, months, or years...

On the same note: Myself growing up in the same BROWN SKIN society where everyone values whiter/fairer skin is beauty and promote FAIRNESS creams to girls. I know how discriminating it can be. It does not matter whether you are with the same race or with different race; somehow the society gives that impression. Hope we can change this mindset for future generations... I would say one should be confident and walk tall in his/her own skin...

Time to go!!! Caio..