Kids and Colors - and eye contact

Kids and Colors - and eye contact
By Charles E. Kraus

I work with children -- all colors and ethnicities.  Homeless kids to future heirs and heiresses.  Thriving children, dying children.  My audiences have taught me to place human awareness above racial awareness.

I've been welcomed into palatial estates, cookie cutter houses, crowded apartments, community rooms, cordoned off birthday party sections at McDonalds, rented church basements -- if you can hold a party there, I've probably played the site.  Nothing I am about to tell you is theoretical.

Long before injustice and the arbitrary twists of fate and circumstance influence who we become, we arrive with a set of values and abilities.  Some kids are  more verbal, have more developed senses of curiosity.  Other's don't reveal these skills and behaviors.  Until you spark their interest.

I show up.  The children notice.  If its Redmond, Washington or Beverly Hills, and the kids see a different magician or clown at every party, they approach with questions and requests for particular tricks or routines.  If I'm in South Central LA, or a white guy walking into a packed apartment filled with Black guests, maybe the room goes quiet.  Maybe the kids don't approach.  They watch.   Perhaps I'm the only white guy who has ever been in the place.

Before my shows, I visit the audience, talk with kids and parents.  There is a simple way to put people at ease.  Works at shows and would probably be helpful at StarBucks.  You make eye contact. Warm eye contact.  Welcoming eye contact.  Human-to-human.  You think the message you are trying to communicate while you are doing this.  Human-to-human is very equalizing.

My eyes tell kids I'm happy to see them, that I'm not judgmental, that I'm not rating their clothes, surroundings or skill levels.  This is a genuine hello.  It's OK.  Alright.  I use words, too, of course, but I lead with eye contact.  It breaks down language and cultural barriers.  It's universal.

My eyes have a different message for parents.  I'm saying, Wow ... kids!  Aren't they something!  I'm acknowledging a well established, parent-to-parent observation.  This often leads to sharing a smile.  It says that deep down, children are important, precious, amazing, and challenging.  I'm also letting people know that my audience is a safe place for children.

Kids can be turned on to joy and wonder.   All kids, or just about all of them.   I don't have to demand quiet or request anyone's attention.  I walk through the crowd picking coins from behind ears and elbows.  I stop for a moment making a silver dollar disappear, or a silk scarf materialize.  Guess what?  Everyone is watching.  All kids know what the word Wow means.

A balloon gets caught on my finger, then on my nose.  Kids laugh.  They found it funny in Da Nang during the war, they find it funny in Palo Alto today, in recreation centers filled with gang members who have brought their younger siblings to see a show, in hospitals, and even, sometimes, in hospices.

Connecting the world eye-to-eye won't put an end to prejudice, but the technique might encourage a sense of community in ways that laws and dialogue have failed to achieve.

The look-in-the-eye message that I like best is one I exchange with teens and adults.  It's not about show business, it's about life.  Yep, I am saying to the person who is receiving my attention --  Life is crazy.  It's stupid and great and mysterious and look at us, caught up in the middle of the mystery.  In a crazy kind of way, we're in this together.