Skin deep

Michael, one of the smaller boys, was sitting next to me the other day. He took my left hand and was looking at it earnestly and turning it over in his hands. Eventually he asked inquisitively, ‘Why isn’t your hand black?’, pointing to my palm. ‘See, mine is black here and white here’, he said, flipping his hands to show his pale palms. In his head, the irreducible logic was that as the back of my hand is white my palms should therefore be black.

The following week, the same Michael pulled gently at my hair and asked ‘Why is your hair like this but mine like this?’ gesturing towards his own closely-shaven afro. I feel that my brief explanation of genetics didn’t quite satisfy his curiosity.