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Their teacher played along, pretending to confuse the boys, ages 4 and 5
Their parents say the boys' tendency to see beyond race is a lesson to all
This is Jax Rosebush and Reddy Weldon. Aren’t they identical? They sure think so.
They’re in the same class. They both love to play. And they both have a lot of energy.
So, according to a post on Facebook, when Lydia Rosebush told her son, Jax, last weekend that he needed to get a haircut, he had a fun idea. He’d shave his hair short to look like his friend, Reddy.
“He said he couldn’t wait to go to school on Monday with his hair like Reddy’s so that his teacher wouldn’t be able to tell them apart,” his mom writes.
Just one thing: Jax is white; Reddy is black.
Turns out, that didn’t matter.
When the buddies, ages 4 and 5, from Louisville, Kentucky, showed up to class Monday with matching haircuts, their teacher played along, pretending to confuse the two. Soon, other classmates were swapping places with each other, Lydia Rosebush told CNN affiliate WAVE.
Jax and Reddy’s classmates aren’t the only ones getting on board with the boys’ friendship. Lydia Rosebush’s post of her son and his best friend has been shared more than 79,000 times.
“It’s total insanity!” she told the station. “I just made the post because my kid is hilarious and cute. I never anticipated this. It just struck me as funny that Jax doesn’t even notice that Reddy is a different color. When he describes Reddy, he never mentions it. I thought with all the hate in the world today, we could use this lesson from an almost-5-year-old.”
Reddy and his older brother, Enock, were adopted from Africa when they were 2 and 4 years old by Kevin and Debbie Weldon, who are white. They say family isn’t limited by race and nationality.
“It’s really cool to see that move on from our family right into his relationships with his friends,” Kevin Weldon said. “There’s an innocence children have that sometimes we lose. If we could get some of that back, I think it would be amazing.”
As for the boys, neither seems to think he’s making a statement about overcoming racial differences. They’re just a couple of friends.