Swirl On

March 30, 2015

Love has no color. I like to believe that, considering I’ve been a walking example of the statement. I’ve always adhered to it, finding interest in a number of guys regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity. All my life, I have been categorized as an Oreo: black on the outside, white on the inside. If it was not the way I dressed—adorned in garments from Abercrombie and Fitch that tightly clutched my thin figure—then it was the way I spoke or the music I listened to. So for those who knew me, it was no surprise that my first serious boyfriend would be some White Boy (the name given to him by a few; he was Caleb to everyone else).

It saddens me that in our day, some still carry a stigma towards interracial dating. As I watched that Cheerios commercial for the first time—you know, the one with the little biracial child who asks her white mother about the health benefits of the cereal, ultimately dumping some of it on her black father’s chest—I could not help but smile. Now when I read some of the comments associated with said commercial, I immediately shifted to battle mode. One expressed shock that a black man would stay with his family. Oh, and we can’t forget about those written on Youtube by the scholars of our time: “Your all a bunch of brokeback gorila inbred freaks. N*gger slavery will come back soon.” These comments bring me back to the time I expressed love for my now ex-boyfriend and received a lecture on how, as a white man, he was trying to fulfill some sick, f*ck-the-slave mentality. Sigh. Does it always have to be black this and white that?

Though there are idiots that still think this way, it warms my heart to see interracial couples. Hey, just 47 years ago, interracial relationships and marriages were against the law. Whether or not one would dare tread the unknown waters of interracial dating, the idea that some people do fall in love blindly—color aside—is uplifting. Whether you’re down with the brown, mellow for the yellow, right with the white, or like to keep your flavors simple and closer to your own—swirl on. Who gives a sh*t what others think anyway? That White Boy and I sure didn’t.

© Scappiamo, 2015