Nick is black and I am white, but to be more specific Nick is French and I am Irish but to be even more specific Nick is Texan and I am Alabamian. We are what we are, whether it be blue, pink, purple or orange. We all bleed red, inhale oxygen and need water to live.
I grew up in the Bible Belt and a good portion of my relatives from both sides of my family are Baptist and preachers at that. When my mom was a girl she even visited a snake-handling church. If you don't get the point by now, I faced adversity by entering an interracial relationship, but not so much from my family (they love him) but from the population in general.
Do I care what people think of us, yes. Now don't get me wrong, I care because Nick and I do get sideways glances and long stares. When I do notice, because there are many times I don't but he does notice, I get defensive. For example: We were grocery shopping one afternoon and an older lady (not to be judgmental but most of our looks come from senior citizens) almost crashed her cart into a display of baked goods. Nick and I were holding hands and I just happened to notice the lady literally staring at us while pushing her cart in the other direction and I got defensive.
Nick always tells me he notices how prideful my mom is and he sees the pride fight in my mom. He says he sees that in me too, especially when situations like that occur. I am very prideful of Nick and our relationship and will defend it until the end of time. I am in the healthiest relationship I have ever been in with someone who is extraordinary. Nick has been, hands down, the best thing that has happened to me. His character is golden and he is amazing overall. I love him to the moon and back.
I feel so many people judge based on color and not character, but to get back to my point, we would all be fibbing if we said we didn't care what people think of us. If we didn't really care we would all be walking around all day in our birthday suits or in our pajamas. We don't because it is socially unacceptable; therefore, we care what people (society) thinks of us so we dress to please. The same is said for our relationship. I care what people think of us because if people look down at us, find us unacceptable or wrong for loving each other then, of course, I care! I care a whole lot.
I titled this blog post Being In An Interracial Relationship in Dixie because that is exactly what we are doing. This post isn't about getting sideways stares by bigots or racists in Dixie. It is about my feelings regarding interracial relationships and equality. Being in Dixie does have some challenges, as I mentioned earlier, from individuals who aren't as open about certain situations but I would be fibbing if I said that only happens in the South. In all 50 states there are people who wouldn't agree with our relationship and that is OK, but disagreeing is a lot different than judging or looking down at people.
Before I finish this post I would like to touch on another topic I hear a lot. The "I don't see color" topic. I definitely see color; I see color because I am more attracted to darker skin. Just as one might be attracted to dark haired women or taller men, I am attracted to darker men. With any relationship there must be an initial attraction and Nick was attracted to me because of my skin color, my country accent and my red hair. I was attracted to him because of his darker skin, broad shoulders and how tall he was. Of course, those are just exterior characteristics because going any deeper would spur another blog post, but you get the point.
Of course everyone sees colors. I like the saying, "Love is colorblind," because love is an emotional, physical, religious, spiritual thing (for lack of a better word) that doesn't see color, but as humans we do. We have eyes and we see with those eyes and we see color with those eyes.
I will wrap this post up by saying this.
"I see color; I see lots of colors. I like to see Nick and I together because I love seeing the contrast in our fingers as they're intertwined and I like to see his big brown eyes gaze at me and his pearly whites smile bright when he laughs. It is love that doesn't see colors and thank goodness for that because if love saw colors we would all be a mess!"
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