Race

I'm really frustrated.

Frustrated, actually, doesn't even begin to cover it.

Tell me, how do you see people?

Men and women?  Rich and poor?  Beautiful and unattractive?  Black and white?  Educated and uneducated?  Saved and lost?

Ever since I was a young teenager, I've had a dream.  A magnetic pull from deep within myself.  I was drawn to a culture other than my own.  Attracted on various levels to people who, by society's standards, were different than me.

But one night I was assigned to write my own obituary.

And one Christmas my Papa said something horribly racist.

One late night after a football game they came running down the street, stopping to dance for us.

And for many, many days and now years afterward I have allowed a deep part of myself to be set free.

But along with this freedom has come an intense amount of judgement.

They would never call it racism.  Such a dirty, dirty word.

But on their condescending tone, in their critical eyes, through their exasperated sighs, I see it.

Over the past few years, I have evolved.

Please point out a woman in her early twenties who is not doing the same thing.  Who is not on a desperate path to self discovery.  Who is not trying it all on, to see what fits.

But the woman who is emerging in me is far different than any of them.  The men I'm attracted to, the populations I work with, the shoes I wear, the music I listen to.  I am a diverse, multi-faceted woman.  Who can curl up in a Goodwill arm chair, wrapped in an African blanket, read fantasy fiction, while listening to Wale.

I am not confused.

I am here to tell you I know who I am.

I know how my heart swells when I walk into a room that is diverse in nature.  Age, race, culture, gender.  I crave it.

But when I walk in wearing hi top sneakers and my bass is booming and the children I hold in my lap do not have the same color skin as me... and neither do the men I am attracted to... people start talking.

So I've come here with all my frustration.

Because if I wanted to marry a white man, work as an elementary school as a teacher in a middle class neighborhood, wear UGG boots, and listen to Kelly Clarkson, no one would think twice.  Not twice.

I am not sure what to do about it.  In wisdom, I know there's nothing I can do about it.  But love the people in my way.  Love the people God has put in my care.  And lean into that magnetic pull.

I am tired of the off-handed jokes.  Of the rolling eyes as they whisper "seriously, would you never date a white man?"

I'm here to tell you I have.  I have dated two wonderful white men.  Who I loved not because they were white, but because of who they were and who we were together for a time.  And if a white man, an Asian man, a blind man, a deaf man, an amputee stole my heart... I wouldn't hesitate.  Because that's not how my heart works.

But the same way you like blue eyes, and a skinny build, the same way you swoon over a man who wears Chuck Taylors and plays a guitar....

My heart skips a little beat when he walks in, wearing his Brodney Polos with waves in his hair.  A bright white smile in a dark face, deep dark eyes, and passionate internal rhythm.  

But it's been turned into something else to those around me.  It's been a source of ridicule.  Mockery.  Whether it's because you think this is something I've forced on myself.  Or because you think it's wrong.  Or because you're uncomfortable with it.

I am just frustrated.

Because I finally know who I am.  I am more comfortable in my skin these days than I ever have been in my entire life.

And along with that evolution has come your widespread misunderstanding.

As old as time.

In the words of my sweet friend, Recina, "I don't know what kind of Heaven y'all are plannin on goin to, but there are lots of colors there too."

Sounds like my kind of place.