When One Doesn't See Color

A very long time ago, I had the best third-grade teacher ever.

Her name was Mrs. Fairfax. Mrs. Fairfax was black, but I did not notice that. I only knew that she was my teacher. My beloved, teacher, actually, and as I generally was, I was a teacher's pet.

She was kind, gentle, good to me, understood that I was sick a great deal, and new who my friends were and where I should and should not sit in the classroom because I couldn't see the blackboard. She applauded me, lauded me, and gave me courage to speak in front of the classroom. She was good for me and to me. I thought she was terrific.

She wasn't a black person to me. She was just a person. The fact that she was black completely escaped my attention.

Black people, as I had learned through osmosis or general local attitudes or whatever, apparently were not nice - or so I thought at that age. They would steal from you, they were different, they weren't people I was supposed to associate with, and they certainly weren't supposed to be teachers. Those were the things I'd picked up on as a child.

Mrs. Fairfax was a teacher and she was terrific. So in my mind she wasn't black.

Today I know better and have a completely different outlook toward people who are different from me. I outgrew or somehow or another have basically managed to eradicate that kind of thinking, as best as I can. I try very hard. I am human, though, and I'm sure I have messed it up somewhere along the way.

I bring this up because I still don't often see color. When someone recently mentioned that Senator Kamila Harris is black, I was surprised. When my husband pointed out that Natasha Trethewey, a Hollins poet and former Poet Laurate of the United States is black (she's half black and half white, I think), I was surprised. (We'd gone to hear her read her work at Hollins.)

And when #45 recently tweeted his racists rant to the freshman ladies of Congress who are persons of color, I had to stop and think about it. I had not given any thought to their origins or their color. I was listening to their ideas, to their language, to the things they were saying about the world, and their visions for this nation.

I wasn't paying attention to their color. Or the length of their hair. Or the shape of their noses, or anything else physical about them, aside from gender. I knew they were women.

It was a while before I realized Barrack Obama was black, too. I was listening to his speeches and reading his words and ideas, not looking at the color of his skin.

The color of skin doesn't negate the things coming from the heart, soul, and mind.

We seem to be a divided country. I'm certainly not going to fix it with a blog post that says, "Don't be racist." Nor am I going to say "I'm not a racist" because I think everyone has issues with people who are different, whether they know it or not. If I've ever offended anyone, I would like to apologize. I'd do it in person if I were aware of it.

I live in a county that's 96% white. People of color are not dominate. We're not exactly the most diverse area in the country. Most crime here is committed by white people - because we're a community of mostly white people. But no one wants to see that, just like they don't see that it's mostly white people who are using Social Services and receiving financial assistance from the government.

Preconceptions are hard to fight. Misinformation is hard to eradicate. Life's a bitch sometimes. All I know is that underneath the skin we're all the same. We have bones, and we bleed.

I want a happy world for everyone.

I don't live in a happy world. When I look around me, I see sad, angry people.

I am so sorry that is what we have become.