"Rainbow Inside My Heart"

Genesis 1:26

 

26Then God said, "Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

 

When you or I get cut, we both bleed. So what does that mean? It means that the hue of your skin or mine doesn't change that we both bleed. We are both human and made in God's image. I must admit that while I do not follow the comings and goings of rap artist Kanye West nor his wife, Kim Kardashian, the one thing that made me take notice was the recent black face appearance someone made in Vienna at her event as a joke and the racial slur uttered against their baby girl named North on a plane in the First Class cabin. Ok, some of you may not agree with interracial marriage, but it's a fact of life, get over it, so what! For everyone who claims to be "the pure thing," you may come to find out one day that a relative of yours is or was of a different hue than you.

 

One of my favorite songs when I was just six years old was Angela Bofill's, "Rainbow Inside My Heart." Why? I have said before that I learned at a very early age about the color line and I didn't like what I saw.  I have had relatives removed from their jobs of service for being in love with someone of a different hue. About ten years ago during a family gathering and amazement over finding a family Bible, I learned that less than only four generations prior, another relative's house was burned down because they too loved someone of another color. Love has no color. With the most recent events,  I found myself remembering what it was like at eight years old being called the "N" word by little girls of another color who cornered me in a bathroom where they planned to hurt me. I got in trouble for defending myself. I learned the racial slurs were out of envy because my body shape didn't look like theirs. I know what it feels like to be followed around a store because someone assumes the color of your skin means that your going to commit a crime. I remember my mom ingraining in me that I had to be twice as good and work twice as hard because the color of my skin would count against me. I didn't give it as much thought until I had an incident in high school where a teacher removed just about all the African-American students from her class whom she assumed would fail and she retaliated against me when I wouldn't budge with the support of my mom.  It cost me an induction into the National Honor Society junior year though I met all the requirements and then some. Senior year, my reason for not budging was vindicated by God. And the teacher admitted to my mom what she did when I was nominated again. When asked to speak in front of five hundred juniors on "Today's Struggle is Tomorrow's Success, I used the experience I had as a junior. Not for the sake of getting back at that teacher which she thought, but for the purpose of demonstrating that overcoming adversity is possible.

 

About three years ago I walked into a store shopping for a dress for a friend's wedding. A woman of the same hue as me assumed I couldn't afford anything in that store and made a comment. While my first response was one of, "I am leaving," I decided to demonstrate more class than the woman who was supposed to serve me. It just pains me that for as far as this nation and many others have come, racism is still alive, sometimes even within my own race. Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance hurts and does damage that people can't always see.