Shedding Color Barriers

In honor of Martin Luther Kind Day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shedding Color Barriers

Martin Luther King Day is a big deal in Atlanta!  As it should be, Atlanta was King’s home and where his final resting place is.  I moved here with my ex years ago.  I was fresh out of college, ready to tackle the world.  You have no idea what it is like living in a city like Atlanta, where white people are the minority with a racist husband.

 

I never truly considered my husband to be a racist until we moved to Atlanta together, then his extreme views escalated.  All through school and in his first years of work in architecture, he had close friends of all different races.  But while eating out in crowded Atlanta restaurants with him making rude references about "n*****s", "spics" and "chinks", the problem became very hairy, green and unavoidable.  Some nights when I didn’t want to crawl under the table with shame, I was truly terrified for my life!

 

We were always very different souls my husband and I.  Suppose another case of opposite attraction.  I wasn’t raised as a racist and frankly never saw life that way.  I thought people of all colors should be treated the same.  I didn’t pay that much attention to a person’s color when I met them before.

 

But my ex-husband was raised to be an extreme racist, his parents were also.  Since he always seemed to have multi-racial friends from work, I thought this was something that he would outgrow as his career blossomed and had more distance from the encouragement of his family.  But as his job grew stressful and his payscale rose, he seemed to develop more and more hostility to other races.  Things were getting much worse!

 

One night we were at the movie, he told me of how he fired the Ethiopian temp worker at work that day.  He was laughing about it too.  Because I ate lunch with him the previous day and heard his friend talking about this man.  I asked my ex-husband, “Is this the same guy that started working for you yesterday, the man who has a family to support?”  I told him, “You can’t fire people because of the color of their skin.  It’s wrong! That man had a family to support and you just took food out of their mouths today when you fired him.  He hadn’t even had time for you to properly examine his skills and work yet. This is going to catch up with you!”  I was afraid that I would be around to experience the aftermath of his obnoxious behavior.  His bad karma would eventually burn me too.

 

My husband really thought that the white race was the superior race, yet he believed in God and was a practicing Christian too.  As time passed, he would make fun of our multi-racial friends when their backs were turned. 

 

One summer, we were desperate to rent one of our rental properties and he refused to rent the property to any of the nice families that came to see the property, unless they were white.  I told him, he was crazy and hurting himself for acting that way.  He ended up renting to a few white students instead.  Unfortunately after living in the house only a week, these students had a huge party in the house, where one of them died from smoking too much meth.  We found out later that at they decided to redecorate by tearing a whole wall between two bedrooms down!

 

My husband was out of control with his extreme racist views and actions; he was just bringing me down my synergy.  He was sucking the marrow of my bones.  You just can’t imagine what it is like being around such an energy sucker full time.  I’m so glad that we are apart now and that he is now legally my ex.  It was difficult for me to establish friendships with a lot of people in Atlanta outside of work, for fear my husband possibly offending them.

 

We’ve been apart for almost six years now.  It’s so nice to be free of the negativity.  To be able to freely enjoy the friendships and the company of anyone without a second thought, it’s been a blessing for me.  I’ve not only shed the color of my skin, I’ve embraced my own values and mores.  I hold my values and beliefs higher than I did before.  I learned a valuable lesson in protecting and honoring my personal views of life.  To choose wisely who I want to spend my time with, not based on their skin but how open their minds are.  How they perceive the world around them.

 

It takes too much energy to isolate yourselves from society based on the color of your skin.  Life is richer and more enjoyable with those color barriers down.  I love living in Atlanta.  I embrace the diversity of our culture in the city. 

 

Looking back, I can’t believe I lived like that for so long.  It was a waste of time for me, but I thought I was in love.  I was never racist at all but I did compromise my values to be with the one that I loved.  In the end he degraded me too, not for the color of my skin but for my values.

 

 

Author's Note

I found myself recalling how things have changed for me on this beautiful Martin Luther King Day. I probably shouldn't be sharing this story, but I am. So what do you think?

Reviews

[KAREN]

Well written, and an excellent read! I agree with you, all people should be treated the same!

[Arsenic Nemesis]

This is stunning work, very deep and really well written - I loved it. Keep up the good work~

[Mauricio Montoya]

Wow Marie that must have been tough to live like that. I lived on the other side of the tracks so I can relate to this story great job well done,
Keep on writing.

[Coyote Poetry]

Easy to fall to hate and fear. Today we still have a long way to go. We need to look at a woman or a man with a fair view. My father felt the hate for his brown skin. Told me never allow anyone to look down at you. You lived a hard life. Some people learn from the error of their parent. Some people become their parent for the bad or the good. I'm glad you escape. Thank you for the story. The world is getting smaller. We need to show respect and kindness to all people.
Coyote

[Geralyn Miller]

I fully understand, My parents were never racist, unlike many of their contemporaries, I grew up in a world where people of every color, religion and sexual preference were welcome. My Mother was absolutely racially colorblind, she thought racism was a sign of stupidity. As a surgical nurse, she always said, "All the blood is red and every Mother's tear is salt."Imagine my surprise at seventeem to go to college in Lubbock Texas and find myself in a racist minefield. Black students were made to sit in the back rows of most classes, even if the room was three quarters empty. If I, as a white girl spoke to a black male, he would be beaten up, don't bother calling the cops, they were probably part of the problem.
I hated it there. The only thing good was meeting the man who became my fiance'(he was a New Orleans boy), then he was murdered, and I couldn't stand it anymore. In almost forty years, I've never been back, and never will. I felt like I was contaminated by the evil of racism the entire time I lived there.

[Undying Glory]

racism is such a disease of our society, i guess we should do our best to rid ourselves of that. this sure was great work, such profound words on deep prejudices that still pervade in the world we live in. nice work

[Robin]

racism is symptom of a closed mind , glad you escaped from his clutches ...

[Zeitgeist Manifesto]

Its a shame to see such closed minded individuals.
In many ways they are still children. Im glad that you
separated yourself from all that negativity. After considering
that infinite number of things it takes to created an
identity...there is no way to pigeon hole a person
just because of one thing..such as race, creed or color.

[Art Sun]

Marie...one must strive to be compassionate so as to realize that color is only the layer of our physical being...we are all people and humans within a world striving to accept and change the ways of repetitive history...

Hopefully one day this will not even be an issue within mankind...

[.]

I am married to a black man and have two beautiful mixed race children, I have never thought anything about colour other than how he beautiful to me..I am aware of his colour of course but his skin colour does not make the person he is..his heart is the same colour as mine, as is the blood in his veins and s**t that comes out of his arse!!! Racist is fear..end of..