Worldview

We went to a mall in the Dallas area the last time we were in the States.  It was filled with people and most of them were much darker skinned than we were. At one point we had stopped to people watch and one of the girls pulled my ear very close to her mouth.  “Mom, “she said, “ why are there so many Africans in Dallas?”

Now if any of you had heard this conversation, you might have gotten a little tense.  Or maybe you would’ve gotten on your soap box about racism or inequality or thinking you are better than someone else.  But my daughter has a different worldview about people that have dark skin than someone born and raised in West Texas.  She has true relationships with people born in Africa.  Every student that is in her class with dark skin comes from an African nation: Zimbabwe, Angola, Ethiopia, Namibia and Nigeria.  So she just naturally assumes that all people that have dark skin are from Africa.  This is her worldview.

My daughter has deep friendships with these children.  She enjoys their time together, goes to their birthday parties, plays soccer with them and cries when they leave.  She knows about their home cultures and how they adapt to Austrian culture; she shares their joy when they see snow for the first time or when they go ice skating.  She can find their country on a map and knows the flag that represents their country.  But more than anything, she knows them as people.

So her comment in Dallas was not spurred by racism, but by surprise at seeing so many people with whom she thought she could identify.  She was naturally very disappointed when I told her that all these dark skinned people were probably Americans whose ancestors had been brought from Africa centuries before.  With eyes wide she said, “When there was slavery?” And at my nod, she replied, “Slavery is bad.  I’m so glad Africans aren’t slaves anymore.”  My daughter says that with more heart felt conviction than most Americans because of her real relationship with African families.

Third Culture Kids like my children have very different worldviews.  They are formed from their birth country added to the country in which they live and, in our case, flavored by the many cultures we come into contact with through our international community. Over the next few blogs, I want to share some of those differences with our friends and family.  Maybe it will help our kids be better understood should we get to come back to the States this summer.  They want more than anything to be loved and accepted by those they love and maybe a little help understanding them will make that easier.