Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Obama or Lion King?

I've written several times about the challenges and joys of raising children in multi-racial families. Mainly, through trans-racial adoption. While I feel pretty incompetent in this area, I continue to strive to do my best. One thing that I love to do is collect multiracial and multicultural children's books. I highlighted my two most recent purchases in my MLK Jr. post a couple weeks ago. "Big Words" about Martin Luther King and "Barack Obama, Son of Promise, Child of Hope".

Well, we've hounded Obama's face into Mateo so many times that now he thinks every black man is Obama. Including Martin Luther King Jr., who's book we read every week. He calls him Obama. And Obama, Obama. And any other black male character, Obama.

I tried to tell Mateo that Martin Luther King Jr. was not Obama, but Martin Luther King Jr. just seemed like a mouthful for Mateo to be able to say. Especially considering he can't even say his own name. So, I've been calling him Dr.King. Which Mateo has now translated to Lion King.

So now every black male is either Obama or Lion King.

Am I doing something wrong here?

2 comments:

JonesEthiopia said...

Too funny. This totally cracks me up, and I read it to my husband, who also found it hilarious. And you have a great story to tell when he's older, right?

The Knott Family said...

During the inauguration, I said to Anna, "There is President Obama, he is our new President and he has brown skin just like you & Carver". Ever since then, every time she sees him on TV, a magazine cover, newspaper, etc. she yells, "OBAMA", there was one day that I had Oprah on and she pointed to the TV and with a very confused look on her face said, "Obama??"....we have the same Obama book that you mentioned and she loves it....she loves the pictures in it more than actually sitting through the whole story. A few other books that we have that I just love are...The Skin You Live In, The Colors Of Us, Whoever You Are. I am somewhat obsessed with buying books that have children of color in them...