Ginger | Black

Ginger | Black.

I’m sure many of you are familiar with ginger jokes… the “belief”, that I, a red-head, actually have no soul due to the color of my hair?  If that’s your first time hearing the jokes, lucky for you! But yes, there’s a wide-range of jokes I have heard about that. It became a popular term and joke though a tv show back around ten years ago.

When having an honest conversation with anyone, I can’t believe that someone would actually argue that I have no soul due to the color of my hair.  And if that person does exist, they have enough other problems, so this debate isn’t worth having with them.

We can all agree that ginger jokes- although possibly funny- are completely ridiculous. My hair is simply the accessory to my scalp- it has no bearing on my worth (or my soul).

So then, why do so many believe that the shade of a person’s skin… a genetic characteristic, just like hair color, determines their worth, their intelligence, or their behavior?

Racism and the effects of it will be a forever part of our family.

Because you see, for those who don’t know, Aaron is African-American, and I am as pale of Caucasian as they come (and a ginger).  Our children will one day deal with being bi-racial and most-likely looking different than many of their friends. As much as we hope and believe that our children will be living in a time where skin differences are normal and beautiful, we are not naïve to think it will be accepted anywhere and everywhere God might take us.

Please allow me, a freckle-faced ginger, to walk you through my life of learning to live not color-blindly, but colorfully. I don’t want to miss out on the beauty of God’s rainbow of races, I want to learn to appreciate and enjoy the beauty that each race brings to this world.

2 ½ years ago I started dating my now husband.  Aaron is the most hard-working, noble, loyal, honorable man I know. To say I got quite the catch is an understatement… but that’s been mentioned on this blog before! In one of our pre-marital counseling sessions, we were talking about our family backgrounds and heritages, and then we crossed over to the subject of our races. I remember the counselor asking us a question that shed light on the different way Aaron and I viewed this element of our relationship. When asked how I would deal with someone who had an issue with an inter-racial couple, I remember saying something more tactful but basically “Well, they can deal with it.”

Aaron was then asked the same question, and as usual, his wisdom far surpassed mine. He replied, “Holly should never question how proud I am to be with her, but I am also aware that in some places, with some people, it is necessary to be extremely cautious and aware of our surroundings.”

Then adding, “We are blessed to be living in an area where inter-racial couples are widely seen and accepted, but I’m very much aware that in some towns, the opposite is true.”

The counselor then looked at me and lovingly but firmly said, “Holly- you need to take a lesson from your fiancé.  Your mindset could cause unnecessary heartache one day if you don’t learn to use discernment in this area. Yes, you and Aaron should be proud of each other, and use your inter-racial relationship as a way to further show the world a testimony of God’s love and equality, but not everyone in the world knows, believes, or chooses to accept truth. You must walk in wisdom, not naïve foolishness.”

His words have stayed with me. But my journey in this area continued…

I remember later on in our engagement watching the musical Memphis which is a love-story between a Caucasian man and African-American woman set in the 1950’s. Eventually, they break-up because of the pressures of the color-minded world wreaking havoc in their lives. I remember tears falling down my cheeks as I realized that if I had lived a mere 60 years ago, my marriage to Aaron would still be illegal in some states.

And that stayed with me. But my journey in this area continued…

Over Thanksgiving, we had the opportunity to go to NYC, and while there we watched the play “Cinderella” on Broadway. This Cinderella was the first-ever African American lead.  As we walked into the theater, I was surrounded by little girls of all different races, and it began to occur to me that they were seeing themselves as a princess on a stage…perhaps for the first time.

As the show began, I thought, this is awesome, but surely they could have still related with a white princess on stage. And in one sense, they could… Just as  I had related with Pocahontas’ and Mulan’s strong personalities, regardless of their Indian and Asian races.

But not until we were back in Houston, and we were talking about the show, did I stop and remember the first time I saw a girl with freckles in a magazine.  Not a few perfect freckles that were obviously photo-shopped on her nose, but freckles that actually covered her face. Just. Like. mine.

And I remember what that felt like: To finally see someone who looked like me, and who was considered beautiful on a universal scale… there aren’t words to describe what springs up in a young woman or little girl’s heart. 

There is something special about the confidence that creeps into your soul when you discover that there is a place for your kind of beauty in this world.

I realized that I had been given a glimpse of the excitement that a woman just like me, but African American instead of Caucasian, must have held while witnessing a black Cinderella on Broadway.  For now, when she told her daughter that her skin color is princess-worthy, there was another voice to back that up.

And that stayed with me. But my journey in this area continued…

All these thoughts and beliefs finally came together with a powerfully bright, light-bulb moment … after I had the chance to go to Africa last month.

While there, I was given the opportunity to work with a table of African women as they made jewelry for a week. On the first day there, these beautiful ladies asked me questions about America and Americans. And then, as I discovered, African women are no different than American women because they started talking about men!  At one point, one of the younger, more out-going women, asked me… “So what are white men like?” I laughed and asked what she meant… when I realized she meant in terms of a relationship, I told her, “Girl, I don’t know…I’m married to a black man!” The shock on her face was priceless and hilarious. She then translated that to the rest of the table, and they all burst into frantic, shocked, and excited conversations. I pulled my phone out to show a picture and “prove” it to them, and as they passed around the phone, they literally, burst into smiles and started CLAPPING. Yes. Clapping. I laughed so hard in the moment and throughout the week as it came back up. It was amusing to me to see the excitement my marriage caused!

When I came home and saw the racial tension consuming American news, and my own Facebook feeds, however, I became conscious that the simple truth of my inter-racial marriage had created a bond for me with those African women that I never could have forged on my own.  I realized with a sobering reality that in their world, equality was still being fought for. Maybe not legally, but certainly socially. What was, for me, a temporary news story, and a week of Facebook newsfeeds, was their everyday life. And although America is much more progressive in this subject than my friends’ home in Kibera, Africa, America still has a long way to go as well.

I began to understand why my love for my husband and his love for me resonated with my African sisters in a way that my words would never be able to. Our house has chosen to be Black & White. Not Black VS White.  Those beautiful African women were every bit my sisters in Christ as my beautiful white sisters. They are every bit equal to me in worth, significance, and intelligence.  But they have been told otherwise for so long that a white woman’s marriage to a black man was still a shock. Yet, it was also a stake of hope. Hope that the rest of the world will see colors of skin a thing to be celebrated and valued instead of judged and hated.

So my friends, my African sisters will always stay in my heart, for a multitude of reasons. But my journey in this area will still continue…

And now, when I see the news stories, and read the Facebook comments, I find myself asking…

I can’t help but wonder how much God hurts when…

He sees His children blatantly ignoring Romans 12:10- Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

When I assume the best or the worst of a person because as something as shallow and literally outwardly as their skin color, how am I showing her honor?

I can’t help but wonder how much God hurts when…

We tell little white girls or little black girls that verses like Psalm 139:13-14 are written for them…

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
    and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
    Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.

We say to live freely knowing that God created them in their mom’s tummy and hand-picked each of their characteristics… that they are beautiful and perfect in God’s eyes. Yet as they are in our homes, we also teach our little girls that Asian, Arab, and Indian girls are less intelligent…less worthy… or less beautiful than they are. Maybe we don’t say that in direct ways, but in our indirect conversations about “them” or “those people”… or perhaps our complaints about “that culture”.

I can’t help but wonder how much God hurts when…

We read Peter’s words to us in Acts 10:34-35 “…Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him,” and yet we assume that no partiality means not caring if someone’s hair is purple and pink instead of blonde or brunette. We have come to believe that doing what is right in the eyes of God is publicly denouncing races or cultures because of the behavior of one man or woman. How do we place the entire race of God’s people at a lesser value and think that we are being found acceptable in the eyes of the Creator of that entire race we just condemned?

Maybe for you the battle isn’t Black vs. White. Maybe it’s Black vs. Asian. Maybe Indian vs. White. Maybe Middle Eastern vs. White.  Maybe Northerners vs. Southerners.

Whatever it might be….please reconsider your words. Your actions. Your thoughts because the colorful life is a much more joyful place to be than the color-less or colorblind one.  Celebrating our differences brings greater happiness than condemning them.