This teacher research inquiry is a critical discourse analysis of second grade classroom talk about racial identity and dialect difference within the theoretical framework of moral philosophy. Participants in the study, which took place in an urban public district in a Midwestern United States city, included ten African American students and a White writing specialist. Analysis of the themes and patterns of the talk showed that even the simplest language arts lesson, when open to serious questions, will elicit and exercise students' moral functions and positive qualities of character including empathy, conscience, moral reasoning, and altruism. The ramifications of such practices and effects across sociocultural boundaries are explored. (Contains 4 notes.)