"Mommy, I want to ask that girl to play. You know...the black girl"--my 3 year old. Advice?

Hey!I have two kids, a boy 6 and a girl 3.We are US nationals, non-muslims living in the Middle East. It's relevant to tell you that because we live in compounds here, which are like self-contained neighborhoods.Our compound--indeed, the entire country--is incredibly diverse. Many languages, religious beliefs, cultural traditions, and ethnic/racial identities.Being black here isn't as polarizing as it is in the US I feel like..."black" could mean that your mom is from England and your dad is African and you live in a secular house. It could mean that both of your parents are African but raised you in Canada and your household is Christian. It could mean that your dad is Arab and your mom is Canadian (but black) and you are in a Muslim family.The same goes for basically every other racial/ethnic identity. A friend could identify as Chinese but speaks English at home because Dad is Australian. A kid could identify as Pakistani and learned English from school and they are trilingual because both parents speak a different native language.Interracial marriages and families are extremely common here and characterize a number of my kids' friends families and our neighbors. Even for those couples and families who are not interracial, racial identity seems to be way more diverse and varied here.Alright, so my daughter says this statement to me the other day. I have absolutely no idea where she even heard the term "black"--my 6 year old has never used it and I am not sure he's ever heard it. When we moved into our building, he was telling me about "the girl with the braids lives on the left and the girl with short straight hair lives on the right"--describing two girls of completely different ethnicities.I don't want to raise my kids colorblind...but goddammit it made me so uncomfortable to hear my daughter pointing out "black people". It just feels icky. Is this my overly-sensitive American upbringing talking here? Or is this really not nice?I didn't want to put special attention on it, so I just kind of diverted. "Oh? Which girl are you talking about? Oh, you mean the one you just met yesterday? With the braids? Yeah, her name's Elizabeth, and sure you can play with her!"I already had a talk with my son about how we don't judge people based on skin tone--you should never assume someone is a construction worker or a nanny just by how they look, and that in our family we treat people with respect regardless, etc etc. He gets it. My 3 year old doesn't understand yet.Where did she pick up this "black" thing? What do I do? via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2G9aSpC