Life With Color – Part 4
I moved to California in 1985 to attend college in San Dimas. I graduated from a small, very independent and strict Baptist college. My classes were filled with mostly Middle class American white kids with a few minorities sprinkled in. My roommate was a guy from California named Joe who was Spanish. We had a lot of fun that first semester of school. He was engaged and his fiancé went to our school.
Before they were married I remember Joe being really pissed about something that had happened with the Dean of Women. The Dean had called his fiancés family and wanted to know if they understood that their daughter was going to marry a Mexican. I could not figure out why that phone call was made. I mean, I knew but seriously are you that much of a bigot that you make that phone call. It still blows my mind that you don’t think her parents have met the guy she is engaged to. Plus did it really matter what race Joe was? I guess it did to them enough to make that phone call.
After that I realized that the people running that school and I didn’t really think a lot alike. My junior year, at least that is what I remember; an African-American man started attending our school. I remember him talking one day at lunch about them telling him to make sure he did not try to date any of the white girls in school. Once again it just felt like bull to me that their feelings pushed over into another person’s life. But, one of the things that have to be admitted with the church is that the Bible has been used to stand with racism and stand against it. Not sure any writings ever in the history of people have been more misunderstood and misapplied as the scriptures we call the Bible. I was amazed that we will let you be a part of us, but only a part. Not all the way in with us, just inside the door but not in the nice part of the house though. Still makes me shake my head.
I worked at Kwikset Lock Company for three years of college and that meant working with people from several countries. Funny thing is that when we worked together race or nationality did not matter. What mattered was how hard you were willing to work together to get a job done. At times it would be apparent that being white did not always work in my favor, but I just worked hard and no matter who I was working with I worked hard. Funny thing is that they may not have realized how much Spanish I actually knew. I was called a few things, but they knew we could make the most money working together.
We went to a church in Bellflower our last two years of school in California. Our church sent buses out into the surrounding neighborhoods and brought children in from all kinds of backgrounds and families. I really enjoyed the diversity of the kids and watching them as we taught a second grade boys class and then a 7th & 8th grade class. There was no race or financial status, just kids hanging out and having fun at church. I always thought that was the purest picture of what God believed life on this earth should be like. It was a lot of fun seeing kids just being together.
In 1990, we moved back to Texas to a small church in a town in the panhandle of Texas. All of the sudden I was reminded of a time and place I thought was gone. Little did I know that it would bring all that past history right to the forefront in my life again. Of course, that is a story for another week.