MINDS WITHOUT BORDERS
We Were the Only White Couple Living in a Black Neighborhood
Being a minority taught me some things
Growing up in a county that was 99 percent white, I wasn’t around people of other ethnicities. The only education I had about other races as a youth came from TV, and I’m sure that wasn’t the best teacher.
Birds of a feather
When I was in junior high, two black families moved to the neighborhood. Mark and Samantha were a year or two younger than me. They were popular and had a lot of friends. Mark was on the track team and my best friend Tori kissed him underneath the bleachers one night.
“What was it like,” I asked.
“Soft and wet,” she said. “He’s a good kisser.”
With my sheltered upbringing, I thought somehow kissing a Black kid would be different.
When I moved from a small town to the city to live with my dad, I attended a high school that was a melting pot, predominantly African Americans and Caucasians.
I was terrified on the first day of school. The school was humongous and I felt lost and alone. Over time, I made friends who were Asian, Korean, and Caucasian. I got to know some Black kids in my class and we were on…
