Why It’s Okay to Go ThereEleven years ago this summer, I fell deeply in love with a bespectacled young lady I spent four hours getting to know on a Greyhound bus. It was a hot Tuesday afternoon–June 24, 1997 to be exact. The hot, 93-degree sun beamed down on me as I made my way to the Greyhound station in downtown Kalamazoo. I was tired, enfamished from all the packing I had done. School was out, and it was time to leave town to go home to
Detroit to visit my folks. Amy–her name for the purpose of this discussion–was also getting ready to go on a long vacation back to her home in one of the New England states.She was quiet, soft-spoken, a woman of very few words. So I thought. As I was getting in line to buy my personal pizza, she was also in line to get something to eat before our trip. Further conversation revealed that she was going my way.She had a chip on her shoulder; she was clearly upset, and needed to let off a little steam about a few things that happened between her and the church I was currently attending.Anyway, during the course of this bus ride, I found out she was intelligent, had this very soothing, very beautiful voice. For four of the most blissful, beautiful hours, she really opened up to me, and at one point was in tears. By the end of that bus ride, one thing was clear: I was in love–I mean truly in love. Mind you I had happened to only see her around a few times before that. But there was one catch: Although we were both saved, born again Christians who clearly loved God–she happened to be white.Although things are changing, there happens to be a taboo in many Christian circles against interracial dating. Although pastors–both black and white–preach that anyone against it is racist and prejudice–when that person’s son or daughter comes home with someone from a different race to bring to the dinner table–the entire dynamic changes. It’s almost like acknowledging that the crime rate in our city has tripled, but when it comes to building new prisons and okaying a millage to do that–guess what: “Not in MY backyard!”
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