There's so much to do - existentially, but I'm talking here more practically about my own personal daily life - but I'm more or less spinning my wheels. Chatting with some friends and family on Facebook, and now writing here, while I could be taking care of other things. Mind is not in taking care of other things mode at the moment, though.
I started the day looking at dresses online. I'm going to a wedding with my boyfriend next month - friends of his. I woke up too early on a Saturday, but that's pretty much par for the course - especially with this heatwave we've been having which I've allowed to curtail my (admittedly modest) level of physical activity. Less physical activity = less sound and sustained sleep.
Anyway, then I got to talk to my boyfriend - which was really great, because we usually see each other on the weekend, but he's now working at a summer camp for a month. He's only been gone a few days, but it already feels like an eternity. Have I even mentioned that I have a boyfriend? Yeah; since October. I'm so bad at this blogging thing. Seriously.
But this is really what I wanted to put forth in this post (if anyone even looks at something that gets updated once an eon): My boyfriend is a musician, teacher, poet, seminary student, and Christian and one of the most insightful, reflective, expressive, thoughtful, passionate and creative people I've ever met. He's from NJ, too. His parents are from Ghana, though, so he's also black.
I thought that living in the northeast and the 21st century meant that such a difference wouldn't turn heads or upset sensibilities - especially not my friends' or family's. But apparently people and our times are not so. At least one person I'm close to is having a problem with it, and we got some questioning looks and ugly attitudes from some of the people we encountered on a recent weekend trip to PA. (My boyfriend is also more than a foot taller than I am, by the way, so we do make a striking image in a number of ways.)
So. I'd like to put you on the spot - insofar as you're willing to comment - and ask you whether knowing that we are an interracial couple causes you any negative feelings and if so what they are, what you think might be at the root of them, and what you think would be helpful for helping dispel that negativity. What happened in the case of the one person who is having a problem is that they didn't think they would have a problem with it until it happened and it turns out they did have a problem. But they didn't think it was appropriate to feel that way, so they tried to conceal how they really felt, telling me they were alright. It didn't work and now we're trying to work it out kind of retroactively. My point is that I think it's better to have this kind of issue out in the open, than to try to pretend it doesn't exist. (In an ideal world the fact that we love each other is the only thing that would matter, but we don't live in an ideal world, of course.)
Thanks for anything you can share.
"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love." 1John 4:18
No comments 2+ weeks after a call for comments! Wow! I think it's a sign that we are in many many ways afraid to talk about race. It's a sensitive topic, and even if people feel like they have good things to say, they are afraid that some poor choice of wording might offend someone, so they play it safe and stay quiet.
ReplyDeleteWhat I really think is that none of us should limit ourselves socially by race. I commend you and your boyfriend (who I shan't name, since you didn't, which may be a show of respect for his privacy) for not feeling limited in this way.
I also think that race is something that we are all very much aware of. I really don't like when people obsess about the details of such matters, but your skin is quite light and your boyfriend's skin is quite dark. It's not only racists who will notice this right away. Indeed, an infant would probably notice, with no knowledge of why different people's is different color or what the cultural implications of that are...
This can lead to a jarring feeling for those of us who believe that we shouldn't prejudge based on race... "Woah! I noticed that! It was, like, the first thing I noticed when I saw him/her (or his/her picture)! Am I more racist than I think I am?"
The fact that we notice so immediately does not, I believe, imply any kind of racism. However, there's probably no one that has no tinge of racist feelings somewhere inside them. So, the awareness of race and the complexity of our feelings can make everything feel confusing and... ARGH!
It's simple, really: you meet someone, you introduce yourself, you try to get to know them, find out if you like them or not. Race should not be ignored, but it also shouldn't be viewed as the most important thing about someone. And... life goes on. I think a lot of people (people like me, at least) can get too hung up on questions like "am I ok with this?" when really, a person's personality is going to end up being much more important than their race. So, while not trying to pretend to be blind of race, we also just shouldn't get hung up on it. And I hope that any people in your life who do get hung up move pretty quickly beyond it.