How potholders got me thinking about racism, my father and the whitewashing of US history

Last month, the day after Christmas, I taught two of our young granddaughters how to weave potholders.  

This is a family tradition, in which both boys and girls learn how to stretch vertical loops of cotton onto a metal rack and then weave horizontal loops through them to form a tight weave. Eventually, this resembles a potholder, at which point it is declared a masterpiece and will never know the business end of a dirty pot.

My son’s 40-year-old faded green-and-white potholder currently rests on my desk under a glass candle jar. He is now a math professor. With his weaving roots, how could he not be?  

The final step of the potholders requires a crochet hook. For my granddaughters, this was my task, along with my daughter-in-law, Stina. I don’t often hold a crochet hook, and as I began pulling one loop through the next my mind wandered back to a time when my own childhood hands crocheted a work of art.