Color blindness

When I look at my growing up experiences, I've always thought of myself as growing up "color blind". Meaning, I had friends of all kinds of nationalities and races, but they never really seemed that different to me.  I kind of patted myself on the back for not really thinking my friends whose parents were from Korea were any different than my friends who were half-Puerto Rican or African-American.  This kind of goes along with the idea of America being a giant melting pot. (Too much Schoolhouse Rock as a kid, I know).

As I've gotten older and looked at it and tried to teach my children, I've realized I've kind of missed out. I've had Jewish friends, Iranian friends, and Indian friends, but by trying to treat them all the same, I really missed out on understanding who they were and learning more about their cultures.  My kids will make a comment about someone like "They have a brown face and black hair", and I'll say "Yep. They do.  And you have blonde hair.  Everybody has different color skin and hair, don't they?" Really, though, isn't it okay to acknowledge that someone is different and say, we should learn more about the country Venezuela where our neighbor just moved from, rather than just saying, we're all the same? I guess that's the idea of America being more like a giant beef stew rather than a melting pot.

I don't want my children to be rascist by any means, but I think that if we learn a little more about each other and where we came from, there's a lot more understanding and appreciation for differences rather than just being completely color blind.