"The Sad Reality of Remaining Racial Division"

"So Chet, I hear your new wife has colored blood," said the 90 year old, white, friend of mine.  "Yes, it's colored RED, just like yours and mine" was my reply.  For the record, I don't think my very old friend got my point because they did not understand the racism of their statement.  Oh, well (Lol)!!

Keep in mind that most of the folks here in New Jersey take a very nonchalant, ho-hum attitude to the fact that I re-married inter-racially.  The friend I mentioned, however, knew my first wife (who was white like me) very well for many of the 38 years we were married before she died. That, and the fact that my elderly friend grew up in a time when you "stuck with your own kind," led to the SHOCK that I'd remarry someone who wasn't white, you see.

Yes, in JERSEY most folks don't seem to care when they see an interracial marriage.  But yesterday, my new bride and I visited BALTIMORE, and things are quite different in that racially divided city.

Many were the suspicious stares, shocked expressions and even mocking laughter (mostly from black people) as we walked through, and ate at, Baltimore's Inner Harbor.  Don't get me wrong, some black (and white) folks, total strangers, made it a point to be (in my opinion) overly friendly, almost as if to assure us that they were "with" us, as well!  We could care less either way..."if God is for us, who can be against us?" But the point is we are used to the comfortable,  we don't even notice you approach we get from most people in our home state.  We weren't trying to make a statement by marrying each other, we are just two people in love who God has joined together.  Too bad others have to interject the sad reality of the nation's racial division into that.

We went to Baltimore yesterday to see our beloved Yankees play the Baltimore Orioles, and before the game I heard the Public Address announcer say something I've never heard in ANY stadium before a game before.  There was a warning to avoid hate speech during the game.  At first, I thought this was a needless exercise in Political Correctness but when I saw that POLICE were publicly honored between innings of the game, and I thought of the riots that took place in Baltimore a few short years ago, I'm thinking maybe it wasn't a pointless attempt to control free speech, but rather a prudent attempt to prevent public insulting of the police which could lead to trouble in the stands?  It's certainly possible.

When my bride and I were walking through a mall in Baltimore before the game, a store window had naked mannequins in the window, some white and some black, separated just like the picture above.  (By the way, the picture above was taken from the internet, but I wish I'd taken an actual photo of the store window...it was really weird.)  Anyway, that store window with the segregated mannequins is really symbolic of the Sad Reality of Remaining Racial Division in America today.  Only God can help people see that our BLOOD is all the same color, and just like the creator of the mannequins made them all of the same material, just different colors, all men and women are made in GOD'S image and created equal.

After all (this is true), many years ago even the New York Yankees were originally called The Baltimore Orioles...kind of reminding me that, though we oppose one another now, all of mankind sprang from the same place if you go back far enough.