Absolute No-Brainers No. 416

A former co-worker of mine once told me a story about taking her then two year old child to the doctor's. Living in the North East in the early Nineties, her kid had managed to get through those first twenty-four months without running into anyone who wasn't Caucasian. When the doctor finally arrived, a seven foot black man, the child burst into tears.

His mother is convinced that this was because her son was encountering something new for the first time, and was scared about it. Without being an expert in child psychology or anything, I can't confirm or refute the theory, but it certainly seems plausible. We don't all react to something new in the same way.

I'm wittering on about this for a very specific reason. I would like anybody who complained that the new CBeebies presenter, who has only one hand, is "scaring" children to explain to me how objecting to that idea is any different from suggesting black doctors shouldn't be allowed near white children.

I also wish I was in a position to ban parents complaining that this sort of thing "raises awkward questions" (q.v. "I'm not a homophobe but why should I have to explain that gay people exist to my children!?!"). Guess what? Children ask questions. That is their job, along with playing in the mud and finding colours exciting. They ask questions so that they can understand the world. It is your job to fucking answer them, you miserable whining bastards.

Remember that Chris Rock routine about certain subsets of the black populace (I'm paraphrasing, obviously) who want credit for the stuff they're supposed to do?

"I take care of my kids." You're supposed to, you dumb motherfucker!

This kind of crap is even worse. This is refusing to do what you're supposed to, and then blaming someone else for demonstrating how goddamn clueless you are.

Wow. That was a lot more vicious than I'd intended. Meh.