by Kiki Mcdonald

Created on: May 09, 2008

One day during Black History Month, my son came home from kindergarten very excited; he had learned all about Martin Luther King Jr. All about him. "What did you learn about Martin Luther King Jr.?" I ask. "Everything." he says. "Like what?" I ask again. "Well, he helps with people's rights." "What kind of people?" I push. "Black people," he responds "like Mei."

Mei is his sister; we adopted her from China. "Finn," I tell him, "Mei is not black, she is Chinese."

"Well, Mom, you gotta admit, her skin is pretty dark."

Mei is aware of how different Finn's skin color is too. He is pale to the point of being translucent, his skin as perfectly clear and smooth as marble. Neither my husband nor I have pale skin, so I have no idea where he got that specific trait. He looks like a ghostly apparition when we walk down the beach as a family every summer.

We were at Finn's swim lessons the other day, watching from the bleachers. Finn was clad only in a black bathing suit, his skin practically glowing in contrast. Mei looked at me and asked, "Mom, why is his skin so white?" The way she spit out the words, it was like she felt he was showing some kind of weakness or flaw. She may as well have been asking, "Mom, why does he have a third arm?"

Mei, however, sees absolutely no difference between the two of us. As far as she is concerned, we are twins. Identical in most every way. Forget the fact that she is only slightly over three feet tall and Chinese and I am neither. "Look Mom," she will say, "we are both wearing jeans and sandals" then she will shrug, "twins."

The only exception is our hair. She asked for the same haircut that I have at the salon. My hair is long and dark, like hers. Her hair, however, is black and has such an incredibly intense sheen that it looks like it has been coated with polyurethane. It is truly gorgeous. After her cut, she kept looking in the mirror at herself, and then back at me, beaming. "Twins" she shrugged.

Later that night, on the phone with her Grandmother, I heard her talking about how she had gotten her hair cut just like mine and that we looked exactly the same, with one exception. "My hair is like silk" she said into the phone, "Mom's? Not so much."

The other day, I am yelling something downstairs to Mei. She yells back up "What did you say, Cracker?" First complete silence, then laughter from all levels of the house.

Upstairs, Finn laughs simply because Mei has a voice like a tiny robot but with a southern accent straight off the set of Coal Miner's Daughter'.

From the basement and from the kitchen, my husband and I laugh because, since it is coming from Mei, it could seem like a racial slur even though she also calls us Burger and Fruit Loop. And laughing harder because we are white and Southern and deep inside, Finn is still pretty sure Mei is black, and he loves her and he is forever grateful to Martin Luther King Jr. for being there for her and her people in their time of need.

And then, Mei's giddy little laugh just because we are all laughing, and we are laughing at her, which means she is funny, which is very important at our house, Cracker.

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