Blend Together

As a first grade class was walking into my art room, I realized I had not cleaned the tables from the previous class. (The last class had been using chalk pastels. They’re dusty.) The students found their seats, and one little girl, who was white, sat at the same table with a little girl who was black. The white girl began swirling her hands in a circular motion on the tabletop.

After a minute or so, the white girl looked at the pastel-covered palms of her hands and exclaimed, “My hands are all black!”

The black girl looked at the backs of her hands and with great delight said, “Mine too!”