As if NPR would let us forget the 50 anniversary of the march on Washington (for jobs and freedom)! It's been wonderful to hear stories about people who were there. Today was three people from Detroit, one
this woman from the famous photo. I've been thinking about color this week, about unconscious prejudice and family (blood and created) and embracing race without letting it completely define us.
This is a fascinating story about race and color being separate entirely.
As weird as it sounds to me to even think it, I'm part of an interracial couple. I read an article once that said when people say they don't notice color or that they are "colorblind" it's as bad as being racist. Because people are different (just like men and women are different right)- not good not bad, just different. And I think I do that with Joshua sometimes. It's easy for me to forget that he's Filipino because I think of him as Joshua. Just like I forget that he's tall and has tattoos and can be rather menacing if you don't know he's the nicest, nerdiest guy to ever live with me. Perhaps I just incorporate him into me, kinda like we do with Jesus (let's be honest even though Jesus looked more like Osama Bin Laden I always first, for an instant, see white Jesus looking off to the side in a white robe with a blue sash).
This ad got tons of
talk going and the NYT has a whole
section on interracial marriage. My children will be one quarter Filipino and that's a lot! I don't want them to miss out on living in that knowledge. But they'll just be our kids! Eh. I'm not too concerned. Being smothered in love is universal. Did you ever see that movie
Babies? Love is love is love.
My husband, smart talking smart walking handsome Joshua wrote a little something about being interracial.
I did not search for a spouse of another color or race or ethnicity. I do not define my relationship through any lens of whiteness or colored. I am a man of color and my wife is white. I embrace our differences. I love them. They make us unique, they contribute to our identity as a couple. Growing up with white parents as an adopted child, I remember my parents encouraging me to understand the complexities of geographical regionalism in an international context to which my personal heritage and identity should be contextualized. They showed me that though I am colored and they are white, most importantly we were family. And so, I hope my relationship with my wife is one that transcends any type of standardization of race. I do not wish for us to be color blind but rather color loving, because ignoring a symptom of discrimination falls into a category of saying that cultural identity is no longer beautiful, but rather something that should be overlooked and feared, homogenizing the human experience. I want us to be color sensitive to each other and our friends of all ethnic backgrounds so that we are able to empathize with others on a deep level of humanity, not out of a passively sympathetic pity of another persons experience. And I believe that we achieve this as we have a multiplicity of friends dear to us ranging from agnostic, black, christian, white, poor, gay, native, et al. Our relationship is wonderful, multi-ration, inter-cultural and beautifully colorful.
