Eyes Wide Shut the name of a 1999 movie is what comes to mind when I think of my views on race. My own eyes were opened just recently making me rethink years of how I thought Americans had evolved. In the year 2008 why does racism still exsist?
Most recently my husband and, I became foster parents ending an eight month wait. I received the phone call at 6:40pm on a Monday to go pick up an infant needing a temporary home. I arrive at the shelter to see a beautiful two month old baby girl. Instantly I fall in love. I look past the fact that I am a Caucasian woman with blonde hair and blue eyes and the baby I get the pleasure of loving is African American with gorgeous dark skin, curly hair and piercing brown eyes. I think to myself of the excitement when I bring her home and my children get to kiss and hold her. Of how my husband will work his magic on her and get her to fall asleep instantly in his arms when he holds her.
On the way home I stop at the grocery store, since I have nothing for a two month old and baby and Beatruce came with even less. Excited to have this new bundle of joy with me I venture into the store, I pull the layers of blankets off the car seat so I can catch a glimpse of her beauty. Only to find how racist people truly are. The stares from other shoppers burned through my skin. How could I a white woman have such a dark baby? Was she mine? Person after person asked if I was babysitting, trying not to think she could be my biological child. When I would respond no I was not babysitting I would get a disgusted look and, that was the end of the conversation. This came from people of all races. Could this be what interracial couples face everyday?
My head is spinning as I reflect back on my feelings of race and ethnicity, how I thought people were so accepting and could look past color. I was so wrong all this time; my perfect bubble has been burst. In one 20 minute trip the world as I saw it was gone. Sadly Baby Beatruce...