A good friend of mine shared a cool story from the internet with me last week you need to hear about. The story actually happened in 2017, but that really doesn’t matter. 

It seems 4-year-old Jax Rosebush and 5-year-old Reddy Weldon are best buddies in their hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. They are typical little guys, full of energy, spunk, and mischief. 

When they talk about their friendship with others, they say they feel like they are more than just best friends — they pretty much look at each other as brothers. 

In fact, these two fellows have so much in common with each other they’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that they are twins. Even though they aren’t related, they look at each other and see a mirror reflection of themselves in their best friend. 

But it was pretty easy for other folks to tell them apart, mainly because Jax’s hair was always a little bit longer than Reddy’s. Jax kept his coiffure combed to a stand-up peak on top of his head while Reddy always went with a clean look close-to-the-scalp crew cut. 

When it came around the time for his haircut to get him looking good for the school’s annual Christmas program, Jax came up with a devilishly-inspired prank idea: he would get his hair cut just like Reddy’s, and then their teacher would not be able to tell them apart. 

“This morning Jax and I were discussing his hair, and I told him that he needed a haircut this weekend,” his mom, Lydia, shared on Facebook. “He said that he wanted his head shaved really short so he could look just 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. He thought it would be so hilarious to confuse his teacher with the same haircut.”

So with mom driving, to the barber shop Jax went. He took a photograph of Reddy with him — you know, just to make sure the barber could see exactly how to make him look identical to his best friend. 

One haircut later, and the trap was set. 

When the two compadres showed up at school the following Monday, they made a bee line straight to their teacher, who immediately appeared to be completely baffled. She looked them both over several times and told both of the boys repeatedly that she was having a near impossible time telling them apart, much to the joy of the little guys. 

“Jax is me, and I’m Jax,” Reddy told her through a huge gap-tooth grin. 

Their little ploy so inspired all of the other kids in their class that all of them decided to swap identities as well. 

I’m sure more than a few of you are sitting there scratching your heads over this — why in the world would two little guys deciding to get their hair styles done exactly the same so their teacher couldn’t tell them apart be worthy of my writing a column about?

You see, Jax is white and Reddy is black. 

Not that that minor detail mattered one speck to either one of these boys, who were apparently never told by anyone that their skin color was some kind of automatic dividing line. 

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/or 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.”

After sharing the story on Facebook, it went viral. Over 100,000 people have subsequently shared it on their own pages, including a teacher in Germany who wrote about a conversation she heard between a mother and her son.

The mom asked her son how many refugees there were in his class, and the boy replied, “None, Mom. There are only kids in my class.”

“If this isn’t proof that hate and prejudice is something that is taught I don’t know what is. The only difference Jax sees in the two of them is their hair,” Lydia wrote. “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.”

So the next time you see someone acting up toward someone else or saying something rude because they happen to look different than they do, please understand that clearly such behavior isn’t something we’re born with. It’s absolutely something we learn from observing others — mainly adults — who are simply ignorant as a result of their conditioning and lack of understanding. 

At least these two little guys are getting it right, setting an example from which the rest of us would do well to learn. 

Sometimes the best lessons come from the most innocent sources. Yes, even if those lessons come from doppelgangers guilty of trying to pull a fast one over on their teacher.