The boys watched the Horrible Histories Rosa Parks video on Saturday morning, and in the evening, Mattie said, "Rosa Parks was really brave to sit on the front of the bus."
Me: Yes, she was.
Mattie: And then no one else rode the bus.
Me: Yes, it's called a boycott. The bus people couldn't make any money, so they changed the rules so that people could sit wherever they wanted.
Mattie: Why didn't they just do that in the first place?
Me: That's a good question. They should have, but sometimes people aren't very smart, and they treat people differently because of how they look.
(pause)
Mattie: Or maybe it's because white is more beautiful than black.
(Me thinking: Ack!)
Me: Well, some people don't think so.
Mattie: Rosa Parks probably didn't think so. She had a lot of black.
Me: Mattie, are you talking about what color clothes people wear?
Mattie: Yeah! Maybe there can be a bus where orange sits in the front!
(I don't think Mattie and James really think about race yet in terms of categories -- they've never described anyone in terms of their race, etc. -- but I didn't quite expect a clothing-based interpretation of the civil rights movement!)
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