not just another post about my boyfriend

Three years ago Tuesday, when I first noticed my boyfriend, I was drawn to his arms. They are muscular. Oooh, I bet I could melt away in those arms, I thought. I just wanted to drown in his embrace. Three years later, I still do.

The next thing I noticed was his smile. It literally lit up the Dupont Italian Kitchen patio. When he sat down next to me, I then noticed his gentle, sweet demeanor. He was incredibly unassuming, yet charismatic and funny. Immediately, I knew he was trouble (the good kind, it turns out). A crush was born.

As the weeks went on and we continued to date, I would describe him to my friends. He’s a year older than me. He went to Virginia Tech and he’s a proud Hokie (is there another kind?). He works in IT. He’s incredibly smart. The list would go on and on. In describing Jesse, the last thing on my mind was his skin color. I rarely mentioned that he is black. You’re probably thinking that I was ashamed or afraid of people’s reactions (if you’re thinking this, you definitely don’t know me) because I was with a black guy. But the truth is that I’ve always been blind to his skin color. It simply doesn’t matter.

Race has never mattered to me. A person’s ethnicity is a complete and total non-issue for me. Race doesn’t define you. When I tell you that I’m Mexican, what do you think? Do you think I can’t speak English very well (not if you read this blog regularly)? Do you think I’m lazy (I can be, but only after I’m tired from working hard)? Do you assume I’m an immigrant (I’m not but my parents were)? I am not defined by all of those stereotypes that are associated with my ethnicity. In fact, those stereotypes have nothing to do with me. So why would I hold anyone else to them?

The problem is that race continues to be an issue in this country. Up until 40 years ago, interracial marriage was considered illegal. Virginia couple Mildred and Richard Loving (a black woman and her white husband) defended their right to marry (and have their marriage recognized by the state of Virginia) all the way to the Supreme Court. In an era when over half of the population opposed interracial marriage, the Loving’s victory in Loving v. Virginia struck down all state bans on interracial marriage and effectively secured the freedom to marry as a civil right (that is, if you’re heterosexual, but that’s a whole different post). Clearly, the decision was groundbreaking.

Just because a person’s skin color doesn’t matter to me doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate the significance of this decision. I realize that hate continues to exist. But because a person’s skin color doesn’t matter to me, I can’t understand why this hate exists. I don’t know why people hate illegal immigrants so much. I don’t get why people automatically attribute a rise in crime to blacks. I don’t know why some people look at Jesse and me, happily holding hands in public, with such hate or disgust. Perhaps I’ll never know.

I hope that my future children will never have to know this world—a world where race is still an issue. I hope that no one will ever look at them and judge them because of what they look like. Most importantly, I hope to provide a good example and show them to look beyond the color of a person’s skin.

We may have come a long way since Loving v. Virginia, but sadly, we’ve still got a long way to go.