My daughter the racist

Here I am, sitting at the computer, thinking that there is nothing to do, when I remember that Sundays do count in the "write something every day" goal, and therefor there is, in fact, something to do. I am finding that the problem I am running into is what to write about. My life is not so exciting that there are just endless entertaining anecdotes to choose from...although now that I think of it, Hailey said something today that caught my attention.

The kids were starting a movie, and there was a preview on it for The Princess and the Frog, which we had the pleasure of seeing on Christmas Eve. As I pass the living room and start down the hallway on my way to the bathroom, I hear Hailey say "I thought she looked better when she was the frog because she wasn't black." Whoa whoa whoa...I turned around and came back down the hallway and started with "That isn't nice Hailey," then stood there at a loss for what else to say. I finally asked her why she liked Tiana better when she wasn't black, to which she responded that she looked more like a princess that way. WHAT??? Ok, at what point did my daughter become a racist? And where did it come from? I talked to her, explaining that black women can be princesses too, and that black people are our equals. Apparently she doesn't really think black people are pretty. OH MY GOSH.

I have no idea where this way of thinking has come from in my daughter. We don't even really talk about race as an issue in our home, because all people are equal in our minds. (Ok, wait, that may not be completely true - we don't talk about black people - we do occasionally make fun of Mexicans because my mother-in-law is one - but I am thinking that needs to stop before something bad comes of it.) But perhaps that is where we have gone wrong - maybe that has allowed her to form other thoughts and ideas based on what she is hearing somewhere else (although she says she hasn't heard anything about black people anywhere else.) I don't know. Jon says she inherited the genetics from my grandfather, a terminal racist from Missouri. This from the man whose grandmother told us once "Did you know that colored people are just like us?" with a tone of surprise in her voice. (Just for the record, Hailey wasn't around either of these people when they were ever talking about other races.) If it is genetic, we are in trouble.

So how do I impress upon my child that all people are equal, without making it seem like such a big deal that she ends up talking about it on the playground, which will inevitably make us all sound like racists?