Reply to "So much light in him!"

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Reply to ""So much light in him!""

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This was my coworker's exclamation when he was shown a picture of another coworker's son. Speaker is white, mid 50s.  He's a decent man with a nice family. Married 25 years, 4 kids.

Parent of the child in the picture is biracial; the dad is black. The kid is very light skinned and appears Hispanic.

Another coworker overheard the exchange and reported the white guy for a racist comment. White guy explained (convincingly) that he meant it in a [b]"he has so much life in him/ he's glowing in health" way. [/b]

I believe him 100% and am prepared to go to bat for him. Any reason not to if it is the truth?

[/quote]

I can't even think of any other reasonable interpretation of his comment.[/quote]

Same.
Until the second paragraph when OP described his light-skinned appearance in contrast to his mom and dad.
In general, even the most racist white people do not tend to offer light-skinned/dark-skinned commentary. They just don’t. If they’re racist, it’s no matter the shade!
But a white person in his 50s may not have any context for why this comment could be interpreted as offensive because they may not have any exposure to the perceived privilege of light-skin vs dark-skin within the black culture.

In any case, someone commenting “so much light in him” is a common way for someone to positively remark on a photo of a child who appears to exude happiness and positivity. The argument that this was offensive is just silly and the “offender” should honestly treat it as such.
As in ge should shrug and say “well that’s unfortunately misinterpreted. I did not and would never remark on anyone’s skin tone.” And leave it at that.[/quote]

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