The Mouths of Babes...

Picked up T at school and headed straight for the polling place yesterday. Of course, up until last year, my polling place WAS at the school which would have been insanely convenient, but the wisdom of the powers that be has now moved it across town. No matter, we were not deterred.

Unusual for me, I was still undecided on the big issue as we walked into the polling place. Apparently, the election has been getting a lot of play in second grade and T had his own opinions. I let him come in the booth with me, because I wanted him to see how it was all done.

Me (whispering): "See, you just make a mark like this across the number and that means you choose this one. These are called propositions."
T (also whispering, although as it was 2pm, the place was pretty empty): "How come you're doing that so fast?"
Me: "Because I already know how I'm going to vote before I get here. You get a big booklet to read."
T: "Oh, so it's like homework."
Me: "Right. You have to do your homework."
T: "So are you going to vote for Barak or Hillary?"
Me: "I like them both. What do you think?"
T: "I think Hillary. We've never had a woman president before and that would be neat."
Me: "Well, we've never had a brown president before, and that would be pretty neat."
T (thinking about it for a second): "Yeah, but he's still a man so it wouldn't be all that different."

Touche. I even let him wear the "I voted" sticker for the rest of the day.

On a side note: my DH who is Nigerian and married to me who is not, always comments about Barak being called Black. Does this mean that his white mother is just an asterisk? That he a fully-formed from his father's ribcage?

Ten year old J asked me a few weeks ago what Barak was. I told him he was just like them - half African and half American. Why then, he asked, does everyone say he's Black when he's really biracial? I didn't have the heart to tell him that he's not Black enough for a lot of the Black voters and he's not White enough for the white voters, so I just said that it was because the media is stupid. He's biracial already. We call it brown around here.

On this date: In 1891, the Dalton Gang commits their first train robbery.