Red, Brown, Yellow, Black and White…

Singing “Jesus Loves the Little Children” as a child made me self-conscious. The line “red and yellow, black and white they are precious in his sight” always drew quick stares from my classmates. I couldn’t blame them because I was trying to picture people I knew who matched those colors as we sang, too. I thought choosing those four colors was limiting, and could never picture someone I knew who was yellow. Besides, I had thought, what’s the difference between someone with yellow skin and a person with white skin? Weren’t they one in the same? I knew I was the one who brought the child with black skin to light for everyone, even though I knew I was brown. Black is the closest to brown, right? At least they were partially right because my hair is/was black. I always wondered why brown was left out. A few years ago, I was delighted to hear that the colors of the children’s skin changed in the song! The latest version includes brown now (If any new colors have been added recently, please let me know). It’s very exciting, I know! Yesterday we were singing the song with Miss Martha’s group, a wonderful group of Christian people who come from Georgia every year to love, sing, and do crafts with our students. (Miss Martha, a woman close to her 80’s, has been coming to Bethlehem for about 10 years now, bringing different people with her each time. The children adore her!) As we sang about the “red, brown, yellow, black, and white” children of the world, I became hot with embarrassment like I had as a child. I quickly glanced around to see if anybody was looking at me to identify a brown person, and then realized we were ALL brown people in the audience! Nobody was staring at me! It was the most liberating experience I’ve had in a long time, being a part of the majority, here in Palestine of all places! Oh, and if you can give me an example of a yellow person, please let me know.