Black. White. Grey?

So on one of my recent trips to a used book store with my mom, I was FINALLY able to find a copy of John Howard Griffin's "Black Like Me". It's an amazing account about his attempt to better understand what Blacks in the South were experiencing in the late fifties/early sixties. He undergoes taking a medication to darken his skin as well as using stains in order to make himself appear black. Using his skills as a journalist, he is able to make an anthropological and sociological study of the events he experiences as both a black member of society as well as a white member as he switches back and forth. It's an insanely powerful book. In 2006, there was a TV documentary called "Black. White." done in 6 weeks that involved a black family and a white family using makeup and the other family's help to blend into the opposite community. Although they didn't go through a lot of the same struggles Griffin did, it certainly showed that racism is still here and still a problem. 

I was raised with a black sister so I count myself extremely lucky to have been raised "colorblind" as my Dad jokingly called it at one point. Growing up, Kolean had even convinced me for a good 2 years that I was the one that was adopted. When the difference between our skin tones was actually blatantly pointed out (by an adult), my dad took us all up to the barn and started pointing out some of the horses... one was brown, another tan, and a paint mare with brown spots. My dad asked us what they were and we responded "horses". He then asked if their colors made them any better or worse than the other one. We all said no.. we loved all of the horses (lol well maybe not Kolean so much... she pretty much avoided the barn usually as a general rule of thumb once she broke into being a little diva). He told us that he agreed. The color of the horse doesn't matter... it's still a horse. Just like the color of the person doesn't matter... they're still a person. And that was the end of it. We all shrugged, wondering what the big deal was anyway, and went about playing. 


To say that race has never been an issue in our family would be a lie. But it has definitely made for some learning experience for every single member of our family. And the lessons keep coming... especially now that my 5 year old nephew is starting to notice the color difference. It breaks my heart sometimes when he gets frustrated that he's not "white like Papa." It's never going to stop being a factor of our lives. And, as sad as it makes me to say it, it's going to be a continuing factor of the American society. Black, Caucasian, Hispanic, Native American, Indian, Muslim, Gay.... whether it's a race, ethnicity, religion, or life style, people in the country are forever putting a label on it and setting it apart from everything else. By acknowledging such "huge" differences, we're giving them power and relevancy. The United States of America has never been the "Melting Pot" it claims to be and never will at this rate. 

Why can't people simply be people?