So Where You From?

**** Warning ****  Politically Incorrect Henry Story

Henry is crazy funny.  Crazy and funny.  Full of energy.  Loves life and LOVES people.  Loves is an understatement.

A Nigerian family bought a house down the street last year.  We have seen them off and on but recently have become friends.  You have to understand that we live in a predominantly African American city but our particular neighborhood is predominantly white.

So we met the family and they are wonderful and we have been to their house and they have been to ours.  The kids are amazingly well behaved (way better than mine haha) and the parents are just wonderful believers in the Lord.  Henry LOVES them.  LOVES.  Like begs to be dropped off at their house.  He also has taken to calling them the Africans because I guess we were calling them that.  I am trying to get him to just call them by their names and not yell, "Hey, Africans!"  Tonight we walked by and he yelled to the grandmother who doesn't speak English that he wanted to play with her kids.  If we are outside and he hears kids, he'll start freaking out telling me the neighbors are home and demands to go see them.

So, tonight we are walking through our small neighborhood like we do almost every night.  We come around a corner on our way home and there is an African American mother and young daughter just getting home and getting out of their car.  Henry sees them from a distance and immediately tells us he wants to go say hi to them.  So we all stroll up and say hi to them as they are making their way to their door.  Then as we start walking away Henry says, "Hey, where you from?  Africa or something?"  It was very smart and cute and curious and just plain kid.... but slightly embarrassing to the parents who could just smile and pretend like we didn't hear it.  Not like he isn't right.  It's just that there is so much racial sensitivity these days, you just never know what's going to hurt people's feelings.