Response to a lady about interrracial dating

I thought I would respond to your correction, not having seen your original post. It sounds like you were sincere. I'm a "white boy" and took no offense from your use of that phrase. I think that was, though, because of how I grew up: as the child of immigrants in Berkeley, CA, where we lived on Ashby street where the BART station now is. My best friend was Jimmy, the son of a black family we were very close to. I was often there, and even, to my recollection, went with his folks on shopping trips. They had a car, we didn't. I guess that looked odd to some folks, the sight of a dark black family with a lily white blond boy in tow. I was close to them to the point that I was at their house on Christmas day for several years. I had not only seen a picture of Jimmy sitting on Santa's lap, but sat on Santa's lap myself a few times. My Mother didn't know what to do with me the first time I saw a white Santa. I freaked, wondering what had happened to dear Santa!

Anyway, that is just to say that I grew up close to black people in a number of settings. There are some stories around that, for sure. I lived and worked with "people of color" all my life and always found it awkward to make any distinction based on color. There were so many beautiful colors in my experience. For many years my closest friend was a wonderful Jamaican man. My white wife and I were often some of the very few whites at some major parties in our neighborhood, both at our house and at others. My distinctions were always behavioral distinctions. If a person was courteous, kind, considerate, and aware, they were OK in my book. This allowed for differences in education, and even of temperament. I was always interested in some one's story. I was without exception disappointed when someone attributed a fault in behavior to "race." I found people of any color did this: misattribute behavior to race. It was, to me, similar to religion. I saw that religious people were not necessarily good or bad by way of their particular religion, they were that way by way of conviction, something that to me was deeper than religion, but could find its expression through religious beliefs.

All I'm saying here is that we have some basic wiring going on that we misunderstand. We are, to make an analogy, very much like similar computers that have the same DOS but are loaded with different programs. We make a HUGE deal out of the differences in programs, ignoring that they are content, not substance. And we ignore, as well, that our basic operating system is identical. So we do what? Argue and get emotional about differences in programming instead of going back to our basic operating system and move from a point of agreement to see how the differences were programed in. Then we can find what is universally common, like air, food and water, clothing, shelter, MUSIC, etc, and go from there. Anyway, I could write a book, but this is already too long.

So yes, I would go out with a black woman, and gladly. Right now, lol, I'd be glad to go out with anyone, lol! I would also know from experience that there would be inherent difficulties both from within and without. Any man and woman getting together have problems, because they are individuals, not because they are of different races. Interracial couples might have external problems as well. I remember walking with a dear friend, very black, very pregnant, and the wife of a white friend of mine. We loved to talk with each other and I went with her for her exercise when her husband couldn't go. We lived in the same house with some other friends, and that was easy to do. We were all in our late 20's. We were occasionally cursed and sworn at, even threatened, by some passing black men. It was very uncomfortable, as you might imagine. It is too bad. It didn't stop me or her, and it didn't stop me from dating black women (I've even been propositioned a few times as well; that was nice, lol) but it has it's social baggage in some areas. I find this very sad, and don't know what to say about it generally, except people would do well to grow up. To me, that means to get out of a limited personal perspective, back off, and look at a BIG picture, and start questioning a LOT of assumptions. The best piece of advise I ever got was to question my mind. Like Taj Mahal says, "Take a giant step...outside your mind."

Well, there is my two cents worth. I hope it might mean something to you. I think it was courageous of you to ask. Thanks.