The Mouths of Babes

Zenobia:  Welcome to Openly Biased.  Doll County is reopening, but we aren't talking pandemic today.  A larger matter needs our attention.  What's larger than a pandemic?  My guests are the Dean brothers, Frodo and Ty, and the Pike brothers, Tanner and Freddy.  They can explain better than I can.

Frodo: We big brothers have agreed to let Ty and Fred take the lead on this.

Ty: We was both very sad and mad about all the bad stuff people are doing.  Our grownups tried to explain, but we're just little kids.  We don't get it.  

Freddy: So we did a spearmint.  These guys took us to the big mall and traded little brothers.  Frodo walked around all day with me and Tanner did it with Ty.  It was lots of fun.

Ty: Let's trade big brothers like we did then!  (The boys switch laps.)  Tanner took me to a movie and then we got ice cream.  Frodo and Freddy had a big ole pizza and then watched a different movie.

Fred: People asked me like ten bazillion times was I okay and did I know Frodo.  Did he steal me or was he hurting me.  Frodo said it was part of the spearmint.

Ty: Nobody asked me that stuff.  And the big boys said that was the spearmint.  All them people thought Frodo was a bad guy, but not Tanner, and the only difference was what color they were.  So then we found out that even the nice people can be dummies about skin color.

Zenobia: It used to be perfectly normal to own black people.  They were livestock, like horses or cows. 

Ty: Frodo said it's like when you throw a rock in the lake.  Owning black people was the big splash, but then all them little waves happen.  Stuff like when you think the best way is being white and going to church and even being a boy instead of a girl.  That's the waves.

Fred: More like the rock was the moon and the splash made tsunamis!  People think the waves are zag-rated or pretend but they aren't.   I don't want Ty to get dead because he's browner than me.

Ty: Lets show them Grandpa Mace's sign.

 

Fred drags a huge poster board into camera range.

Fred: Red is Jenny, Yellow is Vivica, Black is Ty, and White is me.  We're all friends. 

Zenobia: There are different kinds of each color, too, if you think about it.  Just calling Nakoma and Joe "Indians" ignores the fact that they're different tribes.

Ty:  You're not sposed to say Indian.  You're sposed to say Native American.

Zenobia: You're right.  Nowadays some people get upset about the terms we use.  You boys have been saying black this whole time when you should be saying African-American. 

Ty and Freddy (giggling): Busted!  

Zenobia (to camera): The message is clear here.  We've come a long way, but there is still work to be done.  We all need to work on this, no matter where our ancestors came from.  Barbieville was founded as a haven from racism, but even here, it happens.