A 'colour-blind' white boy asked for same haircut as his black friend so their teacher can't tell them apart

A Kentucky boy pleaded with his mother to have his haircut to match his black best friend in the innocent belief their teacher would not be able to tell them apart.

The boy, Jax Rosebush and his black schoolmate Reddy Weldon are both five and attend pre-school together in Louisville, Kentucky.

When Jax's mother, Lydia, told him that he needed a haircut, his response took her by surprise.

"He said that he wanted his head shaved really short so he could look like his friend Reddy," she wrote on her Facebook page.

"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."

She posted a picture of them together at a school event before Christmas.

"I'm sure you all see the resemblance," she wrote of the photo.

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

Her Facebook message, with its message of friendship blind to race, has gone viral, already shared around the world 53,000 times.

"This is total insanity!" Rosebush told local news station WAVE3 News. "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 colour. 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 five-year-old."

Reddy and his older brother Enock were born in Africa. They were two and four-years-old when they were adopted by Kevin Weldon, pastor of Carlisle Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville, and his wife Debbie. The Weldons are white.

"My sons do not look like me... but we are family all the same," Kevin Weldon told the station. "We share the same last name, love each other with all we have, and are a forever family. One day when I am gone, they will inherit all that I have and carry on our family name."