Recently, I had the opportunity to take my baby sister and little niece to the local park. At first, those two were the only children on the playground. I pushed them on the swings and spun with them on the merry-go-round. They were having fun. Then, a group of six more children between the ages of 18-months and 12 years arrived to play on the playground. And it looked like all eight of them were having fun on the swings, merry-go-round and these rolling log type things. I saw a bunch of laughing (and dizzy) faces on that wood-chipped covered playground.

But then I noticed my little sister acting strange—she wasn’t her normal happy, I-wanna-have-fun self. Instead of playing with the other children like I’d expected her to, she climbed to the top of the jungle-gym and just sat there. So, while my niece was playing with the little boy on the merry-go-round (supervised by my uncle), I walked over to where my little sister was sitting. I asked her what was wrong—why she looked so sad. What she said struck a chord in me.

“I want to play with the other kids, but I’m scared.”

And when I asked her why she was scared:

“I’m scared that they won’t want to play with me because I’m white.”

While I figured out what to say to assure my little sister that she didn’t need to be scared, I looked over at my niece on the merry-go-round. She was playing with the youngest of the six children. She asked him if she could push him on the merry-go-round and he smiled while trying to push her. My niece is 3 years old. The little boy is roughly 18-months old. At this point, I should inform you that the little boy is African-American. So are the other children. But as I watched my niece play with the little boy, I noticed that she wasn’t scared. She wasn’t hiding or avoiding him because of the pigment in his skin, and he wasn’t avoiding her because the color of hers. They were two kids having a ball.

So, I turned back to my little sister and told her that those kids probably thought the same thing. That she didn’t want to play with them because they were black. I told her she could play with whoever she wanted regardless of skin color or ethnicity. I told her that what mattered was who they were as people. I gave her the whole “don’t judge a book by its cover” speech. I wish I could say my little speech got through to her. But she never went to play with the other children—she just moped around the park until I declared it was time to go home.

The thing about this story is that it’s happened before. And you realize, at some point, that one of the causes of racism or discrimination or hatred is that it is learned behavior and thought. No one is born hating someone else. My niece and the little boy is a good example—she didn’t care about the color of his skin. She just wanted to play. But with my sister, she was aware of the difference in pigment. And with all the talk about prejudice and racism on TV and at home, she came to believe that the color of a person’s skin determined who she could play and be friends with. So, I implore you, when you are speaking of racial, ethnic, or even sexual orientation, be aware that what you say and do influences the children around you. Teach them how to love and be friendly and determine if they want to be friends with someone based on how they treat people rather than the color of their skin.