Yes, That's My Family - Attending Church




This is inside the building of the church that I used to attend - it is a different denomination now.

  As I said before, I started attending my friend Shirley's church in Virginia in August. I attended services for a few months until my daughter was born at the end of October. Buzz was on deployment, so he did not get to know those folks until November, when Callista was two weeks old.

We were not trying to be cagey or anything, but it seemed impossible at first to find a church in Norfolk where we felt comfortable. Martin Luther King, Jr. said "It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is 11 o'clock on Sunday morning…," and things have not changed that much in America. I went to an Ice Cream Social with Shirley and really liked the people, so I decided to attend services at the almost-all-white church. It was 100% white because two elderly black women moved into a retirement building down the street and it was too far for them to attend their old church across town. I was a young, white, pregnant Navy wife who was enfolded into the flock.

When Buzz and I attended after the birth of our daughter, people were nice enough, though I could tell some people were surprised to discover that my husband was black. I met some wonderful people from that church that are still my friends. We were members there for seven years until we got stationed in Puerto Rico.

Two incidents bothered me. One was after Buzz and I became members of the Diaconate. It used to be that the Diaconate was made up of all men. This church had communion every Sunday morning, served by the Diaconate members as the people sat in their pews. Some of the older people would not accept communion unless it was offered to them by a Deacon. It was ironic that some of the Elders who blessed the communion and passed it to the Diaconate were women, but those people didn't seem to care about that. A lot of the Diaconate were offended that those members would not take communion from a woman, and they started saying, "What if they won't take communion from Buzz?" It was not going to be the last time that the issue of color would be dragged into a discussion about people not liking other types of people. In the end, the minister said that we (the Diaconate) needed to love and accept people who did  not love and accept others.

The second incident was when we had been church members for over six years. When we went to get our family photo taken for the church directory, there were some people that my friend Laura pointed out. Later, when I asked her why she was pointing out that couple, she said that they had left the church when Buzz and I became members. I did not know what to think when Laura told me that. I felt guilty at first, because the couple gave the church a lot of money and he was an Elder and she was a Deaconess. When they stood up at a church board meeting and announced their intent, the rest of the board members told them that they were welcoming this interracial couple into their church, and if they did not like it, they could leave.

That people stood up and did the right thing at that church made me feel such a wave of love and gratitude for them and what they did for us. After all, it is the kind and wonderful things that people have done for me in my life and not so much the crappy stuff that lingers and makes me a better person.

Yes, That's My Family - Friends and Relatives

There have been people who have not approved of my marriage to Buzz, or the fact that we had children. I want to take a moment here to talk about some fun experiences with friends and relatives.

After looking back on my continuing story, I forgot to tell the story of when we visited my sister-in-law, Gina, in the hospital. Gina was admitted because they discovered that she had diabetes and it was way out of control. When Buzz, his dad and stepmother, and Gina's three girls, and I went to the hospital, we could only have one or two people at a time visit her, because she was so ill.

When my father-in-law was upstairs visiting her, the rest of us were hanging out in the cafeteria, which was empty at the time except for a middle aged white woman. Buzz was getting change and buying the girls stuff out of the vending machines, so Delores, my mother-in-law and I were sitting at a table and talking. The white woman started talking to me, telling me about her medical problems. I listened politely, making appropriate sympathetic comments, until she finally ran out of symptoms to talk about. She looked at the rest of the Youngs and asked, "Do you know these people?" I introduced Delores and told the woman that the man was my husband and the girls were my nieces.

The woman looked at my family and said, "We had a colored boy that worked for us one time as a gardener."

I could see Delores start to open her mouth and blast that woman because "colored" was such an offensive word to her. Before she could say anything, I looked at the white woman and asked, "So what color was he?"

The woman was taken aback and sputtered about the man being a negro. I told her, "We like to use the term 'black', thanks!" The woman did not know what to say, so she got up and left. Delores and I almost fell off of our chairs, laughing. When Buzz and then my father-in-law approached us, we were laughing too hard to explain at first.

Delores explained later that the word 'colored' had a lot of negative connotations for her, having grown up in the south where it reminded her of 'colored only' water fountains and the like.

I also cannot look back at my first visit with my in-laws without thinking of my three Young nieces - Angela, Lisa, and Tracie with a smile. I am sure that they knew white people but I think I was the first close relative that was white. They were really young - I think that they were 9, 7 and 6 years old when Buzz and I got married. The girls were curious about me and paid a lot of attention to me, like when they all wanted to comb my hair - at the same time!

Another thing that made me laugh was that they wanted to come in the bedroom when I was changing or into the bathroom when I was taking a bath. Gina got after them because she thought that they were bugging me, but I guessed what they were curious about - the girls wanted to know if I was the same color all over - something that I wondered about black people when I was a little kid.

There will be more fun stories coming up in my next blog of experiences with friends and relatives.

Yes, That's My Family - 10 Stupid Things People Say to Us.

My husband and I have been experiencing an interracial marriage for over 27 years, have two kids, and during that time, we have had people come up to us and say some really stupid things. Usually, they start with, "I am not a racist, but..."

What people have said to me:

1) Is he/they with you? 'He' in this instance is Buzz, my husband, and 'they' refers to my kids, or my kids and my husband, or my relatives on my husband's side who are black.

2) Couldn't you find a white guy to marry? Apparently not. I polled all the white men in the world of marriageable age and none of them would marry me, so Buzz got me by default. Yes, I am being sarcastic here!

3) How could you bring bi-racial children into the world? People think that because we had two children, they are scarred for life. My daughter and son, who call themselves 'brown' when they refer to their race, are well adjusted, happy adults who think that being two races is an advantage.

4) When you and your husband get into a fight, do you call him a nigger? What the heck? It never crosses my mind. Obviously, if I was of the ignorant mindset that I thought that Buzz was a nigger, then I would not have married him. Duh!

5) White women shouldn't have black children because they don't know how to take care of their hair. Really? I did not realize that top hairdressing skills were a requirement for being a mother.

6) You kids are so cute! Where did you get them? I stole them from a black woman when her back was turned? I must admit that it is funny sometime to see the expression on people's faces when they realize that I am the kids' biological mother. The most hilarious times were when my kids had Halloween parties and I would go to the door, dressed in a costume. Sometimes, people thought I was the maid.

What people have said to Buzz:

1) What's the matter, aren't black women good enough for you? The irony in this is that there were some black women who would not date Buzz when he was single, because he was too dark. Buzz explained to me that it is a mindset from the slave days, when darker skinned people who looked like him worked in the fields, while the lighter skinned slaves worked in the house and were higher up in the slave hierarchy.

2) Some of my best friends are black. Really? Why didn't you mention that some of your best friends are white? Buzz and I think that if you single out someone by race, you are not as close to that person as you try to appear.

3) I have nothing against black people, but I wouldn't want my daughter/son to marry one. What people who say this are REALLY saying is "As long as black people stay away from me, I don't have a problem with them, though they are inferior to me, a white person."

4) Why is it that black men are always (choose one) good dancers, good athletes, good musicians, or are well endowed? Being black is not easy. You have to enroll in "Black School" at an early age, where there is rigorous training in music and athletic abilities. Black men that are not well endowed are banished to a secret location, to live a obscure life of shame.

I made sarcastic comments because we think that the things people ask are mostly funny. There are some things that hurt my feelings in the past, but now, I just look at the person who is making the comment and feel sorry for them.