How My Love For The Black Community Developed

Understanding why we are naturally biased and how to change it

I was told my mixed daughter is an abomination, that I shouldn’t have bred with a black man.

I grew up in a suburb of Ohio, prim and proper, straight out of the 1950s catalog. We all mowed our lawns at the same time and all that jazz. There were maybe a few people of color at my school, and being young, I was blind to any other culture. Not because I wasn’t taught, but because there was no diversity where I lived.

Years passed, and with the death of my father, my mother had to move us to a more affordable neighborhood. I moved to the inner city of Cleveland, Ohio.

The cultural change was a shock

I went from being among only white people – to being one of the only white people, and it not only shocked me, but it also terrified me.

While I was growing up, I heard my friends and others talk about how dangerous these neighborhoods were, how the people in these areas we’re violent. I hadn’t ever experienced it for myself, so I was cautious when making new friends. I met a girl, one of the only other white girls there, and clung to her like she was the last piece of my previously sheltered life. She would be the one who would introduce me to friends outside of my skin color – expanding me to a complete cultural change that would alter my perception of race forever.

I was biased towards the fairer skin, much so that I would identify white or mixed kids as the safer option as friends.

A real sense of love

After months of living and attending school in Cleveland, it was still rough for me. I was like a foreign object to everyone; I didn’t for in. Nonetheless, I made friends.

It was summer, and a group of us were at the playground getting ready for a game of manhunt. (The game is where half of the group hides in a vast area, and the other group searches. Kind of like hide and seek only on a larger scale and in the wilderness.) I was teamed up with a few girls I had never met; they were black. They instantly became my best friends, still to this day.

I became accustomed to Cleveland; it wasn’t scary at all. Obviously, being weary of crime and violence was a must, as in most cities. However, that isn’t what I noticed the most. What I saw was a sense of community I hadn’t ever seen before. A reason for real love, not like in my Leave it to Beaver city. Collinwood, was a place I felt accepted, not just existing in.

I learned that I was biased on my white skin because that’s all I knew, and I was fortunate enough to see both sides of the coin at such a young age.

What most of us don’t know

Does love see color? Or are we taught to see color?

Most adults I know who are white, haven’t experienced living, loving, befriending, anyone in the black community. Some are still stuck in the biased opinion of color equals safety.

There is no difference between my black friends and my white friends; I don’t see color. Yet, people who grow up being taught that their skin is better, have zero concepts of the reality, which are – skin isn’t the issue, the mentality is the issue. The mindset to only love based on skin, who to hire, befriend, found in the skin, is not you being racist, (not always) it’s you being biased in what you are comfortable with.

Allowing yourself to Not only realize, but embrace the black community, well open up your heart to the actual meaning of love when It comes to humanity. And that is, to love everybody equally. Me learning that my bias opinion, was just that, an idea, allowed me to look past skin color and create a beautiful child out of my race. Because I didn’t see color, I saw love.

Love is what wins in the end

Your skin color shouldn’t matter, for many reasons.

We are all deserving of love, we are all equal. And you need to realize that our brothers and sisters of humanity, are being attacked because of this bias, because of the lack of understanding, because of a lack of love. And what do some of us do? We point fingers as if we aren’t responsible for crime, hate, violence. We are taught that white skin means a better being.

Love isn’t taught, but racism is.

I urge you to understand this and come together to give the black community what they deserve – love and equality.