Sometimes I think we start talking to little kids way too early about concepts that they can't begin to understand, or that may even screw them up.  And I can't let Black History Month come to a close without giving you a perfect example of this idea.  

When Margot was four, her preschool took the kids through a very thoughtful, multi-day section on black history in the United States. One day, from her car seat in the back, she told me she'd learned all about a man called Dr. Martin Luther King.  When I asked her why he was special, she said, "because he was the first person who discovered that black people can be nice too."