Colors of love

Love knows no color.

At least, that’s what people say.

Despite this, I’ve always experienced glances from the side of people’s eyes when I have been out with a boyfriend who happens to be of a different race.

Before I get any further, no, the whole world isn’t looking at me. I’m sure that more people are accepting of interracial relationships than those that oppose it.

Still, with that being said, as a girl who believes love bears no color and who has dated more men outside of her race than inside of it, I’ve come across plenty of judgmental faces and looks admonishing my audacity.

It starts at home.

Coming from a household with a mother who grew up in a family of empowered black women and a biracial father, it still astounds me when my moderate and usually understanding parents shoot off comments about my choice in men.

I can almost understand why my mother asks why I can’t find a nice black guy to bring home. I tell her that first of all, I am not looking for anyone. I let these relationships happen, and they just happen to flourish with more white guys than black guys.

These are not preferences; these are feelings, and while I love my mother, my happiness comes before her acceptance.

My father, being an intelligent and sometimes overbearing epitome of a strong black man, is the one that leaves me feeling the most discomfort, especially being a daddy’s girl.

I can’t count the number of times he’s expressed how I don’t need to bring a skinny white boy home; however jokingly he says it, the consistency of those sort of comments baffle me.

Sometimes I’m sure that this animosity toward my boyfriends and interests stems from my parents thinking I’m rejecting my heritage, or even the ‘black love’ I’ve grown up with all of my life.

Then again, I remember that my parents are a part of that group of people who always seem to point out when a white girl dates a black guy, or the ‘odd coupling’ of a Hispanic and Asian couple, and I just accept that this is their way of thinking.

I’ve stopped making excuses for their personal prejudices and roll with the punches.

That being said, dealing with my parents has helped prepare me for the instances where strangers decide it’s their turn to judge me. No matter how much they stare, I always stare back and even put on a show if I’m in a daring mood, because showing affection toward a person that makes me feel good, no matter what their race, is nobody else’s business.

Admittedly, there has been one instance with a stranger that nearly sent my blood into a boil.

For the sake of a short story, after rejecting a guy multiple times, he asked “So, you must like white guys or somethin’.”

I could have burst. I could have said exactly what I was thinking and played into his ignorance.

“No,” I could have said. “I just prefer a guy that doesn’t add to the stereotypical projections given to black men. You know, a guy who knows the waist of his jeans don’t belong around his kneecaps and can utter a sentence intelligently without calling me ‘shorty’ or ‘ma.’”

Instead, I kept calm, smiled and bid him a wonderful future.

This moment bothered me most, but it is not a rare event. I can still see the older white woman who watched my now ex-boyfriend and I shopping together when I was 17.

I can nearly taste the lip gloss of the girl who smacked her lips as she listened to me talk to my best friend about an attractive white guy in my class. I can hear the scolding I got from my mom during Thanksgiving for saying that Chris Pine was hot.

These situations solidify one thing: No matter how often I date outside of my race, the prejudice is not my own. I can’t make excuses for my parents anymore.

I can’t just chalk up societal rejections of my colorful love life as another sort of ignorance and accept it.

In a world of eclectic shades of people, falling in love with someone outside of your race, inside of your gender or a part of another religion, should be accepted the same way as how you drink your coffee in the morning. Whether I drink mine black or with a little milk in it, it’s nobody else’s business.


E-mail: aysymatz@indiana.edu