How I Came to be White

            Today I went through the normal routine of a herd of children trailing me around town (market days are always the worst), but wound up with an unexpected twist. As usual, the kids followed me back and forth through the street, all the while trying to hold on to some part of my body, little hands clamped down on my wrists, my arms, my hair, my ankles. Eventually most of the children went home, but three of them were adamant and continued to trail along with me. They were no older than 6 or 7 years old. They began stroking my arms and petting me, which, after a year alone, is really not so bad (I understand dogs just a little bit better now). Anyway, they were petting my arm when one of them asks out of the blue, “Do you take your bath with cold water or warm water?” I replied that I use cold water (that’s how it comes out of my showerhead and I don’t really have any option about it). That led to a little bit of whispering amongst themselves. I asked, “Do you use cold water or warm water?” They answered that they use warm water. And then the kicker— “If a person uses cold water he will turn [white] like you?” They had done a process of elimination and found that the difference between our lifestyles was that I used cold water instead of warm, and that therefore must account for the difference in our skin colors. I said, “No, he will not turn like me.” Upon hearing this, they pondered for a bit, then asked, “What has turned you white?” This was an even more interesting insight—they did not just think that cold water was the reason I was white, but that I had once been black and had turned white. I explained to them that nothing had “turned” me white, but that I had been born white, just like they had been born black. They considered this. Eventually one girl concluded, “God has just made you that way.”