Brown Superheros

This is an old story mingled with a new, a story about both Jacob and John and how they became fascinated with brown people.

I am writing this story now because something Jacob did triggered my memory and one day the details may be forgotten.

Recently Jacob had the opportunity to color some people and he chose to color them all brown, when asked why he chose that color he replied, "Well I want to be brown," which is the truth and it all started many years ago before he even understands why he wants to have darker skin.

This fascination really all started with John and through a person both John and Jacob had the privledge of meeting and learning from.

When John was 5 years old he came home talking about this little boy he met. I remember him getting in the car, his big blue eyes huge and he couldn't get the words out fast enough about this little brown boy he met, Mark. "Momma, Momma, Momma (he always says my name 3 times when he is excited), Mark is awsome, he can run super fast, he does these rolls on the ground (demonstrates when we gets home), he is so cool Momma." John has always loved doing daring things with his body, speed and rolling on the ground. Everyday John came home and talked about this cool little boy. I would always tell him, "John you are a superfast runner and you do those cool rolls" and he would say, "OH, I Know , but Mark is awesome. This little boy was John's first friend and so much like him that if we wanted them to be quite they weren't allowed to sit together. Whenever we went anywhere with Mark, the two were inseperable, we went on a field trip to the zoo once, a special trip that only John got to go on and unfortunitly John and Mark weren't in the same group but to them some leader was not going to keep them apart, so at every opportunity Mark was walking with our group and the two were inseperable, always looking for each other.
Probably one of the worst days of John's life was when Mark moved with his family, they were in the military like we were. It took John a long time to make a new friend and to really stop feeling upset every time we mentioned Mark.

Jacob was three at the time this was going on and because John and Jacob are only 19 months apart they have always been the best of friends and the best playmates. The year John turned 5 was the first time that John had a friend that Jacob didn't and so when he did get home he would tell Jacob all about Mark and how he was brown and super cool, with all the demonstration added into it.

About this same time we got both boys involved in Kempo, and Corey was training to get a black belt in it. I remember the first day we went to see what the class and the insructer were like and the huge expression on both boys faces when they met Mr. Smiley (his real name). Mr Smiley was a huge man, really big and compared to a child gigantic, he was very agile, super flexible, really good with kids, gentle in teaching them, patient and if you haven't guessed he was very "dark brown". He was a great teacher to them and both boys were in awe everytime they entered his classroom, they both loved talking about him and what he could do.
A year later after they had been taking for awhile, Corey was ready to test for his black belt and during black belt testing families and students get to watch. So one Saturday we gather inside the dojo and watch Corey begin his testing. Testing really is an awesome thing to watch, it is super intense and the whole room is buzzing with excitement for the canidate. John and Jacob watched daddy go through an hour of katas, repeating kicks, repeating punches, push-ups, jumping jacks, and just about as much cardio as anyone can take. Then as if that wasn't enough the boys watched as Corey fought Mr. Smiley and two other black belts. The fight lasted 10 minutes and at every minute a new, fresh person jumped in to fight him, the point of the fight wasn't to win but to not quit and keep getting up, which Corey did and got his black belt. In our house, daddy is great, he can do anything and both boys think he is the strongest and smartest person ever, if I have problems doing anything the boys are like "Let's get daddy to do it," even if I have had only a few seconds to try. So the day daddy got beat up by Mr. Smiley was the day that they realized who the real superheros are.

It is funny but I have acutally gone outside to see them playing like superheros and asked who they were and their reply has been, "Oh, I am Bobby and he's Andrew and we are brown, Momma watch how cool we are." All this is followed by supercool demostrations.
I have also gotten pictures they have drawn of these little brown boys with orange hair.

I think Corey and I have always been a little nervous in how people would view our boys perception for another race because when we first had John and Jacob we said we would let them discover the different colors of people for themselves and thought that they would just see everyone as the same. They certainly noticed the different colors and even though I think they view everyone as the same they really think some people have more abilities then others. So when asked what my children want to be, don't be surprised if you hear brown.