Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

I am White, my partner and love of my life is Black. To me skin color is nothing but to some it is everything and the more I think about it, the more I get confused, upset and eventually pissed off.
My partner and I were talking about Barbies, somewhere a long that conversation she told me her mama had only let her play with Black Barbies, I asked why, She said "You know.. the stick to your own kind..thing.." This was a complete shock to me for I played with all sorts of Barbies.. black, white, asian.. you name it. To me Barbie was Barbie not a skin color.
Now I do understand that there was racisim in the past, Whites against Blacks, Black against whites..etc.. But this is 2011.. This is not the time of slave plantations. There will be those that will say "Well, of course you can say something like that. You've been had anyone be racist toward you or your family or anything" I do beg to differ. For I have. Quite a few times.
My First experience was in Las Vegas, NV. I was on the bus headed toward work when a black vetran was talking about how he was in ww2 and such. I was going to thank him when I should have notice the entire bus got quiet.. I was the only white one on there and as I went to get off the bus and thank him he called me every white racist name in the book and no dare to stop him. I've stopped several, and have cut several short but as it happened I did not know what to think and cried.
My partner's family can also be racist at times. They do not agree with our relationship as we are lesbian but what bugs some of them more than that is she is lesbian for a white girl, what is so wrong with that? The Bible says nothing about mixing skin colors as they tried to say. Thus this problem plagues me, especially when not one intelligent answer can be found.
Must we live in the ignorance that led our Forefathers? Can we not break away and lead on as one? I understand that some hatred runs deep but eventally even the deepest well, spring, lake or river will dry...