photo: Shola & her boyfriend
Anyone who chooses a love partner or life partner based on WHAT he or she is, rather than WHO he or she is, is absolutely bound to be disappointed at some point along the road. WHAT we are in terms of age, race, sex, religion, education, vocation, social status or financial status, or any other criteria, changes with each lifetime and in most people's case many "identity" criteria will
change several times within a single lifetime. You can marry a poor person who becomes rich, a rich person who becomes poor, a dominant person who becomes submissive or vice versa. While one's race and national origin may stay the same genetically, one's inner relationship to one's birth background often changes dramatically in the course of one's life experience.
Look much deeper when looking to love. Try to see the Universal Human in your partner. Some may call it the "Christ" or the "I AM" or the "Higher Self". It is the Eternal One and only when the Eternal in "I" can love the Eternal in "Thou" will our love remain Eternal. -Christine
Christine, there is an underlining factor in this story of dating or marrying whites with other ethnic groups. Fundamentally, whites, as a people, want the groups they have enslaved, conquered and screwed over to simply get over it. In the healing work of undoing or unlearning the complexities of the complex white supremacy has placed on people of color whites remove themselves from the process. There are many examples. The most recent and telling was President Bush blowing off the nations who wanted an international conference on the subject of race early in his reign. He gave voice to a basic and present attitude held by millions of whites.
Today is too close to slavery, the Trail of Tears, Apartheid to start glossing over the dark of our relationship with our white relatives and running into romantic notions of civility and harmony that do not exist between us. If we embrace the shallowness of Euro-American's idea of healing the wounds we will never heal, they will never heal. We will always court and dance, and fancy romance and bring children into these unions atop thin ice.
In my short life I have met precious few whites who have ventured deep into the realm of true healing, recapitulation, unlearning and acceptance. Some have worked close with me over the years in my own search for true reconciliation, my own unlearning, my own yielding and letting go of obsessive resentments.
I understand the anger on both sides. But I firmly stand against lying to ourselves and our children. Tell the truth.
Race is a religion in America and people of color have to dance a dance that makes white people feel good about themselves in the science and quest of making a living in this world. We all do it consciously or not. The only people who can make statements about not seeing color are our white relatives and the highly enlightened beings who live amongst us. A state of enlightenment can only be attained as mentioned above with love, understanding, and forgiveness at the deepest levels of Soul. These are my words. ~ Gregory E. Woods, African-Absaroka Indian Sun Sep 12, 2004
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