Everywhere Jeff and I go, we almost always recieve praise and compliments on how beautiful Elliot is. Comments come in left and right from all walks of life-whites, blacks, old, young, men and women. So it makes me wonder what, or if, people think when they see that Elliot is biracial.
If it was just Elliot and I, people at first glance would assume that he has a black mother and father, until they take a closer look. If Jeff and Elliot were alone, people would assume, and be correct that he has a white father and a black mother. But when kind strangers see all three of us together, they still give us sweet and thoughtful compliments. A few weeks ago all three of us were in Kroger, and while I was in the meat department, an elderly white woman came up to Jeff and ooh'd and ahh'd at the precious face of our child. When I walked over, her smile did not fade, she did not look at me sideways and she did not change her tone. She simply said we have a beautiful child. I thanked her, and as we continued shopping, I chuckled because it never fails for compliments to come our way. But looking back, this woman has clearly seen the horrors of the days when our country was engulfed in Jim Crow laws and protests from blacks and whites. I thought to myself, "What was the nature of her thinking during those times?" Did she think anyone who did not share her skin color were inferior? Did she believe that everyone was born with equal rights? Or did she stay out of the situation by not voicing an opinion at all? Or better yet, did she once think we were inferior to her but now embrace us and others as the human beings we are?
Long ago, but not so long that there are no more witnesses, whites and non whites were prohibited from engaging in intercourse and marriage. Thanks to the ruling of Loving v. Virginia, it doesn't matter what your skin color may look like, you are free to marry whomever you please. Yet there are still people, whites and blacks alike, who feel whites should stay with whites and blacks should stay with blacks. So I ponder, what was it like to walk in the shoes of this woman we came across in Kroger.
Another instance occured in Meijer, where I saw a man in a motorized wheelchair dressed in overalls and a hunting camouflage hat. Quickly I labeled him as someone who might be a redneck, and turned away just in case he would cast a digusted look upon his face when he saw all three of us. "Awww, look at the baby," a voice said. I turned around, and it was the very man I thought of as a redneck, and then he asked, "How old is he?" "Eight weeks," I replied. "Well he's just joining the party!" he said. Then he smiled and chuckled as he rolled on. I felt ashamed for branding this man as someone who might not have looked to kindly upon bi/muliracial children. But it warmed my heart that it seems as though people don't care what a child, or an adult's skin color is.
You might ask, "Why does it matter which race is giving your family compliments?" Well it doesn't matter. I love recieving compliments about how beautiful my child is, no matter from who it comes from. But it makes me happy to see the ongoing process of people treating each other as equals. It doesn't hurt to think what others might be thinking, though. I might never hear the stories of where these people came from and their ways of thinking. All I can and will do is smile and thank them for saying how beautiful Elliot is.
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