Ellé Bell Café

The other day a woman I work with came up to me and whispered," Is the man you been dating, is he... well, is he a black man?" The air was thick with her discomfort and I stood there for a minute soaking it in. "Why do you ask?", I was curious. "Oh don't make no matter no how, I just heard something and wondered if it was true is all..."

Being raised in vanilla farm country as a corn fed white girl in a predominantly English speaking white community, I don't understand racism, or the thought or feeling that I am united with other white people because I am white. More importantly, I do not understand how all are not all united in America, the worlds largest melting pot, completely indifferent to skin color. When will people realize we are not to be looked at as different races, but all part of the same human race?

I currently live in a small rural community deep in the south, and still understand very little comparatively in the big picture about racism in the south, or racism at all. I do not feel like I am united with "my people" because we share a skin tone. There are many cruel, backwards, ignorant white people in this world, and the same with all people despite their "color". My point is what gives anyone the right to judge me, or my relationship, especially if the only thing I have in common with the person judging me is our skin color? My loyalty is to my God, my family, and myself. If your thinking isn't right, I don't care what color your skin is, I have no loyalty to you.

I have dated and married white men. For whatever reason, it didn't work out. My fault, their fault doesn't matter - I wasn't happy. Realizing a pattern in the type of people I was with, my eyes were opened and I decided I never wanted to make the same mistakes again. So I decided I would consider the person on the inside and truly be colorblind, because love isn't always what you think it is. If you have truly never found it, it probably is what you think it isn't. Well, it made sense in my head, anyway.

So here I am, in a relationship with a wonderful man who loves God, served his country, and is the most compassionate and understanding person I have ever met. He is funny, and strong, he chooses his words carefully to hit their mark, and supports me and my goals and dreams. He is so very, very good to me. Ours is a relationship based on respect, trust, and love. How can you deny that because of other peoples prejudice?

We go out in the community, and some people take a second look, make faces, or stare... I guess I look at it like it is really not about them, anyway. The way I see it is the degree of their reaction is reflective of their degree of ignorance. I love him, he loves me and we have the type of relationship that others wish they had. Isn't that what it is about anyway? Finding someone who brings peace, love, and happiness in your life?

I am proud of him, I am proud of us together. If you spent 10 minutes with us, you would understand it too. We have a long road ahead of us, but rest assured we will not focus on the looks, or the faces, or the stares we may get on that road. Hand in hand we will walk our road together, laughing the entire way:)