This mom's tweet thread about playground racism went viral because parents need to hear it.
Writer slash mom Mathangi Subramanian recently witnessed some playground discrimination. Even more disturbing than the words that were thrown around by the children is the fact that their parents turned a blind eye to it.
“Still processing this, but two days ago, two blonde girls at the playground told my daughter she couldn't play with them because she doesn't have blonde hair,” Subramanian explained in a multi-tweet post. “The girls' parents did not intervene. You better believe I did.”
Her message to the children was blunt and to the point, yet totally reasonable. She didn’t attempt to “school them,” but carefully explained that excluding others is never cool. “I told the blonde kids at the playground that they can't exclude people,” she continued. “I did it calmly and politely, while their parents watched.” Um, yeah. They just watched. And said nothing.
After the incident, Subramanian had a heart-to-heart with her daughter about race and discrimination, revealing on Twitter that this was sadly not the first time her little girl had experienced exclusion because of her skin color. She points out that it isn’t really fair that she is forced to have these sorts of conversations all of the time while white parents have the privilege of avoiding it.
“Parents of color talk about race with our kids all the time. We have no choice. It’s there, everywhere, and can’t avoid it.”
The bottom line is that as a parent, your job is to, well, parent. By promptly addressing the situation, the blonde moms could have taught their children an important lesson. “They should've said something. ‘My daughter was watching. Their daughters were watching,’” she tweeted. “White parents: TALK TO YOUR KIDS ABOUT RACE. I know it's uncomfortable. But the rest of us do it all the time. We need you to do it too.”
Kids are not colorblind, but it is our responsibility to raise them with the understanding that skin tone doesn’t really matter.
As a mother, I have occasionally found myself in the position where I knew I needed to address race with my children. Despite the fact that we live in Philadelphia, one of the most racially diverse cities in the country, and that my kids have friends of every skin shade imaginable, they still say things that make me cringe a bit. They notice that other people don’t look the same as them — whether that has to do with skin color or missing body parts or if they have a penis or vagina. They are just figuring things out, and since kids rarely have a filter, that means they say what they’re thinking. Out loud.
When they’ve unknowingly said things that could come across as ignorant, I have immediately corrected them. Because that is my job. “You treat people equally, no matter what,” I have explained. “Never exclude others.”
The bottom line is: whether we are talking about race, nutrition, manners or hygiene, we can’t expect kids to just “know better.” It is our job to teach them right from wrong. It is our job to explain why differences aren’t a reason to treat people differently. If we, as parents, don’t guide them through social and racial awareness, how can we ever expect racism to dissolve for good?
A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
An office kitchen.via 
An angry man eating spaghetti.via 
At least it wasn't Bubbles. 
You just know there's a person named Whiskey out there getting a kick out of this. 
An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
- YouTube youtube.com
Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.