The messages ranged from silly to profound, but the one that I'm thinking of today was one that drew a bit more surprise and mixed reactions than the others. I said simply and clearly, "I love black men."
One guy I knew once told me I was racist, to which I responded from my arsenal of Seinfeld quotes (it was the 90s, remember... heck Seinfeld quotes are still amazing), "If I like their race, how can that be racist?"
He told me I was racist against whites.
Well, jokes on him cause I married a cracker.
Actually, I married a man with a mixed heritage, but until people get to know us and learn about our family, Billy and I look like the standard white couple. And it bothers me sometimes.
I know... for a fact.... that I am over-analyzing this. But sometimes, I think people might look at me and think that for all the things I say about racial equality and loving diversity, I wasn't willing to put my money where my mouth is when it came to who I married. Which is absolute crap. It just so happens that I fell deeply in love with a "white" man. And, furthermore, why do I even care?
But I recently read a blog post from a man who I really respect named Bryan Loritts and he explains how it is that he, as a black man, married a half Irish/half Mexican woman. The post is amazing, and I really encourage everyone to read it. It's a compelling story of redemption and the journey that he traveled trying to negotiate what it means to be a black man who finds his identity not in acceptance from his race, but in acceptance from his savior, Jesus.
The line that hit me hard, though, and that I'm writing about today was this:
We decided that our ethnicities would not be ignored, and at the same time would not become the ultimate focus of our relationship.Later, he says:
On and on we can go, yet we must keep coming back to the essential truth that we don’t hang our ultimate joys or disappointments on the color of our skin, or the ignorance of others. Our lives are hidden in Christ.Finally, he sums it up by saying:
Forgive the bluntness of it, but I’m in love with my wife. I want to be sensitive to you and your feelings, but I will not allow anyone and their aversion to interracial relationships to keep me from enjoying life with my bride.(insert husband for wife, and intraracial relationships for interracial relationships)
And I realized that, first of all, it's probably all in my head and there probably are very few people concerned with whether I married a white man or not. And second of all, if I am truly to be enjoying diversity regardless of race, then marrying a white man who has a very different personality than myself is a huge step in this same endeavor.
