Crayola Acts According to Kairos

West Halls quad
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This past week has fortunately, gloriously, been filled with great weather. And as evident by the amount of sunbathers and Frisbee-players spread across campus in various quads, we all took advantage of these warm days to escape our cramped dorm rooms and soak up some rare, warm, March rays. One days as I was sitting outside eating lunch with some friends, the topic of lazy summer days and getting a glowing tan came up (of course). And this led to sassy comments about my complexion. Yes, I’m extremely pale. We had only been outside for about twenty or so minutes when the observations about how I was “practically glowing” and turning slightly pink began – about how I was like the pale peach Crayola crayon. “The flesh one,” someone said. Wait. A pale, white-peach crayon being referred to as flesh or skin-tone? That was slightly unsettling.

            This comment and realization immediately led to a discussion about how this was somewhat racist, as not everyone had a peachy, pale skin tone. Thankfully, Crayola changed the name of its “flesh” crayon to a “peach” crayon in 1962 – right in the middle of the Civil Rights movement. Talk about acting in the kairotic moment. Right when people were striving for equality and acceptance, regardless of the color of skin, Crayola rectified its oversight of classifying white as the universal skin color.

crayolastore.com

America has thankfully only made more positive progress on the grounds of equality since then. And once again, utilizing kairos, Crayola has reacted to acknowledge the celebrated diversity in the modern world, and to instill and reinforce this value of acceptance in children. Now available for purchase is a set of “multicultural” crayons, including the colors black, sepia, peach, apricot, white, tan, mahogany, and burnt sienna. According to the Crayola website, these colors are available to “give a child a realistic palette for coloring their world.” This infiltration of political-correctness in not only politics or media but also children’s’ toys makes me proud to live in a society that is constantly working towards complete equality and away from bigotry and ignorance.