Please help the ignorant white mom with an ignorant a** question about race.

My five year old and I were watching Fairly Odd Parents yesterday and she was asking about Chester (left) and AJ (right) and if you don’t know who they are, they’re the main character’s (middle) best friends.

Chester is a cliche trailer park kid and AJ is a little super genius, African American boy.

She was asking me their names and I told her and she said, “which one is AJ?”

So I told her, “AJ is the super smart one.”

“The brown one?”

I didn’t really know what to say or what the educated response would be so I said, “I don’t really think he’s brown, I think people are all different shades of color. But he is super smart!”

Is there a more sensitive or less awkward way to deter her from picking out skin color as “the” defining feature? Please don’t judge me and don’t be too harsh, I’m just trying to learn and educate my children in a way where they won’t be scrutinized by society in the future. TIA