All Mixed Up

October 15, 2009

Today I bought Gabrielle her first biography on Martin Luther King, Jr., Martin's Big Words by Doreen Rappaport and Bryan Collier. I crawled into bed beside her and broke open the crisp pages.

In 1955 on a cold December day in Montgomery, Alabama Rosa Parks was coming home from work. A white man told her to get up from her seat on the bus so he could sit. She said no, and was arrested. . .

As we laid there sharing a single pillow, I explained to Gabrielle that there was a time in our nation's history when white people like her daddy wouldn't let black people like her mommy sit on the front of the bus. "And that was very mean," I added in a soft but very serious tone. "But Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King changed all that. They made it so that black people could sit at the front of the bus and drink from any water fountain they wished. They made it so that mommy and daddy could get married."

There was silence.

"What's bi-ra-chel," she asked.

"Bi-racial means you are half black like mommy and half white like daddy."

"I like pink," she said. "And white, and blue - and red."

"I like red, white, and blue too," I told her.

"All mixed up," she said.

"Yes, all mixed up," I said.

And then the lyrics of that old Peter, Paul, and Mary tune came dancing through my mind.

I think that this whole world
Soon mama my whole wide world
Soon mama my whole world
Soon gonna be gettin' mixed up