We’ve attended and loved our church for many years.  I recently volunteered in the nursery and found they had painted it and stenciled the words to various children’s hymns on the walls.  Lines from songs like “Now I lay me down to sleep”  etc. now adorn all four walls. The one I had a problem with?  “Red, and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.” 

Hmmm.  We have an Asian daughter, and she is totally mystified at knowing that Asian people were sometimes referred to in the past as being “yellow. ”  Should I say something to the church?  Then I start to wonder, “Well, it seems to be OK to call someone black or white.  But it’s not OK to call someone red or yellow.  What’s the difference really?”

  Is this something I should bring to the attention of someone in authority at the church?  Or should I embrace the message of the line, which is “it doesn’t matter what color you are, you are loved.”

Terri Urban

I don’t think that is racist at all!  That song has been around forever and the most important message is that God loves us no matter what we look like or who we are.  Please focus on that as the message for your children and not dervie a negative message from a song that was written before all this politcally correct language was created to make everyone afraid to talk about or celebrate our unique characteristics.

Politically correct or not, ‘red’ and ‘yellow’ aren’t terms that should be used to describe people. They have a long, negative, and racist history behind them and their use. The overall message in the song is one of inclusion, but honestly, if you were talking to someone and the subject of transracial adoption came up, would you want them to ever reference your ‘yellow child’? And to anyone on the other side of that conversation, would you honestly ever use the term ‘red’ or yellow’ to ever describe American Indian or Asian children? Bring it up to your church, they may respond well. It wouldn’t take much to modify it to ‘(They are all) or (All children are) precious in His sight. It keeps the message of the song without the use of massively outdated terms.