When my kids were 5 and 6, in the late 70's we had no TV out here, children's books, The Cat in the Hat, were not color conscious, pretty much vanilla. They were well behaved and polite for little kids. She took them to the big supermarket in the county seat 40 miles away, and the kids saw their first black woman in the store. They were speechless, totally stunned, eyebrows arched little mouths wide open, they stared like the bumpkins they were. Wife was mortified, hissed at them between clenched teeth...stop it, stop staring dammit. Black woman looked away, embarrassed too I suppose. The trip home was long, with endless questions and answers. Wife told the munchkins, just forget it...they are like Injuns only from a different tribe, that's all. Munchkins weren't buying it. Neighbor gave us some National Geographics to help the munchkins catch up thankfully. Pretty soon the creek bottom was littered with willow 'assegai spears' and pygmy blowguns.
