My daughter’s rainbow dress: “In support of all queer and gay people”

by Sachi Feris

My daughter was two-and-a-half in the fall of 2014 when Michael Brown and Eric Garner and Black Lives Matter were all over the news. During those months, I wrote a post entitled, “How I would talk to my future four-year-old about Michael Brown and Eric Garner.”

Fast forward a year-and-a-half: My daughter just turned four—the age I promised I would talk to her about news stories like Brown’s or Garner’s—and I found myself confronted with how to talk to my now four-year-old about Orlando.

The other morning I asked my daughter if she might want to wear her rainbow dress and rainbow socks that day—and maybe paint rainbows on our faces with face paint. I also mentioned that there was a special reason for wearing rainbows that day.

My daughter complied and as she was getting dressed, I tried to share the following with her:

“The reason I thought it might be really nice to wear rainbows today is that the rainbow is a sign of support for people who identify as queer or gay like your Uncle (click here for a post explaining the word “queer” for my daughter). And a couple of nights ago, a group of people who identify as queer or gay were hurt—so a lot of people are very sad about that, including me, and wearing rainbow colors is a way of telling your Uncle and everyone who identifies as queer or gay that we support them and that we don’t think it is OK that some people were hurt just because of who they are and who they love.”

During this explanation, my daughter kept interrupting me with logistical concerns about which pair of rainbow socks, and whether she would wear a long-sleeved shirt under the tank top dress (as the day was chilly) or bring a sweatshirt with a zipper—so I wasn’t sure how much she had really heard and wasn’t planning to press more information on her if she didn’t follow up with any questions.

But after sitting still and telling me how to apply face paint to make a rainbow on each of her cheeks and one of mine, she asked:

“Mami, how were the people hurt?”

“You know how I don’t really like it when you point your finger at me in a violent kind of way when you are pretending to do magic on me?”

My daughter nodded.

“Well, the reason I don’t like when you do that is that it makes me feel like you are trying to hurt me with a pretend gun—and I don’t think it is funny to play (even if it is pretend) with something that can hurt other people. Because the way the people who are queer or gay were hurt is because someone used a real gun to hurt them.”

“Did some of them die?” my daughter asked.

My eyes got watery. “Some people did die,” I acknowledged. “So that makes me feel really, really sad—and there are a lot of people who feel sad about what happened right now. That’s why we are wearing rainbows today—so that we can send a message to people who are queer or gay and tell them, ‘We don’t think it is OK what happened. We want you to feel safe.’”

“But Uncle wasn’t hurt, right?” my daughter asked.

“No, your uncle lives in California and this happened in Florida—your uncle is safe.”

“Where were they hurt?”

“In Florida, a different state, in a place called a bar which is a place that adults go to have fun and have a sort of party…and your uncle could go to a place like that to have fun with her friends and we want her to feel safe when she does. (Note: my daughter’s uncle uses both “she” and “he” pronouns.)

“What were their names?”

Though I wasn’t planning on showing my daughter photos of the Orlando victims, I got my phone and we scrolled through a few photos. I named each person as we saw their photo and my daughter repeated their names.

“Eddie. Luis. Akyra”

I also noted that a lot of the people who had died were Latino, like her, as they had Spanish names.

After a few minutes of looking at photos, I closed my phone and suggested:

“Maybe we could send a picture of you with your rainbows to your uncle to send the message that we want all queer and gay people to feel safe.”

My daughter liked the idea and we went out to the playground and snapped several shots of her on the way. Then we sent an email to my sister. We wrote: “For my Uncle in support of all queer and gay people.”

(Note: I use the term “sister” with my sister’s blessing through she has chosen the word “Uncle” for my daughter.)

Throughout the day, people commented on my daughter’s rainbow theme. I got the feeling that most did not connect it to Orlando, so I clarified, “We are showing solidarity with Orlando today.”

I want my children to be active in standing up and saying “What happened in Orlando is not OK.” For my sister (my children’s uncle), for my best friend from kindergarten, for my first-year college roommate and friend, for my ongoingly generous SEO/web specialist, for my good friend from “adulthood,” for the parents of my children’s friends, for my neighbors: “In support of all queer and gay people.”

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Sachi Feris is a blogger at Raising Race Conscious Children, an online a resource to support adults who are trying to talk about race with young children. Sachi also co-facilitates interactive workshops/webinars and small group workshop series on how to talk about race with young children. Sachi currently teaches Spanish to Kindergarten and 1st grade at an independent school in Brooklyn. Sachi identifies as White and is a mother to a four-year-old daughter and nine-month-old son. 

Click here for a related post “Talking about Orlando with my four-year-old” by guest blogger Shannon Cofrin Gaggero.