Is Your Son Brown or White?

Recently we went to a Halloween function at our local YMCA. Two women sat at a table where they were making ghosts from tissue. My two sons and I walked over to the table and requested a ghost from one of the women. As she completed her project for my oldest son a young boy came over to the table with his mother and baby brother . The woman immediately turned her attention to the young boy and asked him what color pipe cleaner would he like to use for his ghosts. My boys and I were waiting patiently and I said, “What about A, doesn’t he get a ghost too?”. She was visibly flustered and said, “Okay, I’ll make one for him.” But she completed the ghost for the little boy.

My son A then asked, “Do you have a son?” The woman responded “Yes I do, he’s around here somewhere.” A then followed up with “Is he brown or white?”. The woman responded “He’s white”. The other brown woman at the table shot me a glance and I couldn’t help but to smile. She finished up A’s ghost and we walked away from the table. Throughout the evening and beyond I wondered did my five year old interpret that this woman immediately responded to the little boy because he had the same skin pigment as her son? Did he somehow sense he was overlooked because he was brown unlike the woman’s son?

Did my 5 year old witness and experience the workings of white privilege first hand or am I just reading into this thing like an Africana Studies major with a naptural ( I dont relax my hair)? Thoughts?