Thursday, June 27, 2013

Black and White


Growing up, I went to schools where 95% of the population was white.  My friend, Tia, in high school was the only black student in our grade.  I never really thought about that until I went away to college, and became the Tia in my group of friends.  

My first friend at Franciscan was Liesl from Dominica.  She was friends with Palesa, also from the same Caribbean island, who became my future roommate.  Liesl started dating an awesome guy named Adrian from St. Lucia, who also became my close friend.  So it was a close knit group: me and the West Indians.

Then Sophomore year, I asked for a new roommate and was placed with Andie, a twin from the Philippines.  Of course, her twin sister Mandie (how cute is that?  Andie and Mandie!) became a treasured friend, and then Andie started dating Hideki from Indonesia.  So now it was me and the West Indians and the Asians.  But that's not all, we also partnered up with a real.live.African princess from Uganda named Joan, but pronounced Joanne.  Princesses are picky like that.  Finally, another white boy, Tristan, from the Cayman Islands joined our cultural clique and my friend Anne (American!) was given membership into the International Group and there you have it.  

Now, hanging out with this group was so so so fun.  They made fun of me incessantly for my naive and localized views on the world.  They had travelled all over and spoke different languages and knew how to have fun wherever we went.  Do you know what it's like going to a club and being the only white girl dancing in the group?  A little like this:

For our Four Day break one year, we rented a huge van (ahem, like the one my family owns now...so embarrassing)  and drove from Ohio to Massachusetts to stay with my family.  I think the phone call home the week before went something like this:

 "Umm, Mum, is it okay if I bring some friends home for break?"

"Sure, honey, we'd love to meet your friends!  How many are we talking about?"

"Just my close friends, so twelve."

"Uh, okay, we will figure it out.  Sounds fun."

"Oh, and can you please tell my not-racist-but-raised-in-Ireland-around-only-white-Irish-people-and-sometimes-can-be-a-little-blunt-Dad that they are all from other countries and different races.  Thanks" 
(Hang up quick.)

It was an awesome trip, and college experience.  I wouldn't have changed a thing.

Fast forward to present day.  My kids go to a school in a city where there are nationalities and races from all over.  I love it.  They are following in their mom's footsteps and becoming the whitest whiteys in their group of friends:






And you know what's great? No matter what race or background or color God made us...


Now off to Cari for more Theme Thursday: Black and White

21 comments:

  1. What a great story! And boy are your kids cute!

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  2. I love your interpretation of "black and white"..and those kid photos are super cute.

    And, I have to admit that I'm sorta surprised that a real, live, African princess would decide to go to STEUBENVILLE?? You would think princesses would be more the Harvard type? LOL (not that Steubenville isn't a great school...all my friends who went there, loved it!).

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  3. Look at you, all creative with the theme! We should get Mary W. to link up :) It's funny, my kids still don't get that people are different races. (Well, John Paul is JUST starting to...) THey don't even notice. I think that's cool.

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  4. I love your take on the theme! Mostly because I like color pictures best.

    Loved seeing Marijanna in your picture and all your pictures are beautiful--how could they not be, with such cute kiddos?

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  5. This was a unique take on black and white. PLUS..we learned more about who you are and your experiences.

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  6. Great take on the theme.
    Your kids; so cute!

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  7. AnonymousJune 27, 2013

    I loved this! Wonderful take on Black and White. =)

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  8. This is wonderful. I enjoy when people take the theme in a direction I never would have thought of!! What a wonderful story :)

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  9. I love this take on it. Your college friends sound like me and my high school friends. We had one of just about everything. There were three white girls in our group of all races, but even we were different: one had Amish-raised parents and was a Mennonite, one was all English, and I was the only Catholic. Very cool to be us.

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  10. I feel like we need to start singing "We Are the World" now :P Over here in opposite land, John Paul was TERRIFIED of all black people as a baby because once a black man pretended to be a shark and scared the crap out of him. For MONTHS he would start sobbing every time anyone with remotely dark skin looked at him. And there we were, trying to explain that our baby isn't a racist...

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  11. What a great post and a great message all around.
    I was bussed into predominantly black neighborhoods all through school and thought nothing of it.
    My dad, was kinda like yours and he had issues. Life is too short I always say; have fun with where you are!

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  12. I love your take on black and white!

    I was going to go with my new black and white stripped slimming bathing suit from Wal-mart (thanks for the suggestion!) which I ordered on Monday and got yesterday (and that was with normal 97 cent shipping!) It looks super cute but I was not really in the mood to try to take a picture of myself wearing it this morning and I was too lazy to sift through all my pictures to see if I had any good ones that I could edit so...

    I have a blank post today (guess I've got the white covered!).

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  13. AnonymousJune 27, 2013

    Oh, I see what you did there! Tres cool.

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  14. Adorable and awesome and lovely! Love your take on this theme!

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  15. When I was younger I always wanted to adopt a bunch of children from all over the world (I was the Angelina Jolie before she was) so that I'd have a rainbow of children and no one would grow up prejudice. As you can see from the picture... God granted my wish in a way. Hundreds of kids later, I have my rainbow!

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  16. Awesome....all the way around. :)

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  17. Loved this feel good post!

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  18. I love your theme interpretation!!! Awesome post!

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