It's What's Inside That Counts

First and foremost, my apologies for not posting since the first of the year. It seems the first 2 months of this year have flown by and the family has been extremely busy. Like every family, we've had ups and downs but we keep on keeping on, knowing that we are truly blessed. So, thanks for your understanding in this and I'll try to be more diligent.
This evening I took Abby, our 17 year old, and we went to Ohio Wesleyan University to listen to Coach Herman Boone. He was brought in by several of the campus clubs in celebration of Black History Month. Coach Boone is the man who coached the high school football team that inspired the movie "Remember the Titans". What a treat this was for us. Coach Boone is still a very active, energetic and passionate speaker. He shared with us from his heart how difficult it was to carry out those coaching duties in Alexandria, Virginia in 1971. Racial tension was very high and the segregation of three schools, bringing white and black students together for the first time, was a very big challenge. Then, bringing the boys together as a team to play football was something all together different. Through their story the lives of so many people were changed. The coaches and players first had to learn to talk to each other and respect each others differences before they could learn to trust each other. If you remember the movie, this was quite a struggle. But the end result was a group of young men came together, looked inside themselves for the right answers, and succeeded. They changed a community, the community changed the state and the state changed a country for good.
While listening to Coach Boone speak, I couldn't help but think about how my eyes were opened to the issue of race and how my heart and mind were changed. In 1971, I was 7 years old. Race was something we ran against each other when Mom hollered from the back porch to come in for dinner. We grew up in a small farming community of 400 people {I think they counted pets too} in central Illinois. There were african americans living in central Illinois at the time but not really in our community or in our schools. We were taught from a young age to respect and love others as we want to be respected and loved. Somewhere in that time I developed more of an indifference to people who were different. By different I mean not growing up in a "white" family, not living in a "white" community, not attending a "white" church and not going to a "white" school. Later in life, during training to be foster/adopt parents, that was termed being "white bread". We did a cross-cultural exercise where everyone had a bowl in front of them. On the table around you were trays of colored beads. The leader gave directions like these; "Put a black bead in the bowl for every african american family that lived within a mile of where you grew up. Put a yellow bead in the bowl for every oriental you had in your class at school." It didn't take long to see we lived a pretty sheltered life in rural America. Ok, so I was "white bread". During those most impressionable years, I also started believing things that were being said about blacks; they were mean, they were lazy, they were theives, they hurt people needlessly, all of the stereotypes you can think of during those times in our life come to mind. I believed those things to the point that I just didn't like or want to be around anyone that was different.
We did have one student in our HS that was black and she seemed okay to me but we didn't have the same friends, indifference. It wasn't until I started my first job after school that I was forced into working close with someone of color. It turned out to be a life lesson for me. This guy was really a good dude. As time went on, I began to realize that "they" all weren't the same. Many things happened the next few years but it took those experiences to change my perspective on people in general but specifically people of color. I began to gauge people more by the "content of their character rather than by the color of their skin." I guess that's when I started growing up. I've found that it doesn't matter what color a persons skin is, good is good and evil is evil. I know that none of these things are "earth shattering" but I believe that each of us, depending on our upbringing and the character of our parents, go through this discovery of who we are. Obviously, some walk away from this experience and continue to choose to hate with no valid reasons. I hope that some day our children will be able to go where they want, take on any challenge they face, and be respected and loved for the people they are on the inside. The color of their skin is a non-factor because you and I know, that it's what's inside that counts the most.
Until next time, that's the view from my stand.