It Never Crossed My Mind

I hope I explain it well. As people we are who we are and sometimes we think the way we think and others can take that the wrong way. I'm a painter, from both sides of the tracks, my soon to be ex is African American and I relate more to black people than white people simply because they've been good to me. The same things goes for people in the gay community because they've been better than good to me. This is just a story from my own experience. I am obsessed with mermaids and they are something I enjoy painting. It never crossed my mind to paint a black mermaid until a friend of mine suggested it and might I add those two mermaids are the best ones I've done and one is so stunning I was going to keep her until my friend asked me for a mermaid painting and God told me to give her that one. I don't know why it never crossed my mind, but it didn't. The same thing happened at Christmas many years ago. I took an angel tree card for a child that wanted a cabbage patch doll. Me and my sister searched high and low for a cabbage patch doll, store after store, because we wanted the real cabbage patch doll, not the little plastic ones. When we finally found one she was ethnic and it totally caused me to pause, because I'd never even considered what color the child was, but there we were, standing in front of this beautiful doll, not wanting it to be unloved, wanting it to be everything the child wished for. It was funny but it wasn't when my sister said to me, "It wasn't a problem until you found a black one and are faced with your own race and your own pre conceived notions." A couple standing near us laughed, a black couple, (God I hate labels) and we weren't even offended. So there in that store we prayed for that doll to be perfect, for that child to love it no matter what color it was or what color the child was and for God to bless the gift. Sometimes it really is outright ignorant racism, others its just a person is who they are in their life, in their own skin and didn't even consider all the possibilities.  I'm a lover of all people, but that's totally what happened to me and I didn't even realize I was pre conditioned to think that way.