This will not be like any other blog you will ever read from me. This will be truth from my heart about a situation I just recently went through.
The other day I decided to go to the movies, now this was not your average movie theater. This was in a suburban neighborhood in the middle of a caucasian area. However, I did not know this before going. I pull up and it is huggggeeeee, and it is the only building within a 10 mile radius. Now I had just got off work so I had on my work pants and a black hoody. I walk in and of course like every black person I looked around for “us”. There were none insight. I immediately felt “out of place”. This theater was amazing on the inside, it was like one of the old timey theaters with the velvet ropes and such. It was beautiful.
I walk up to get my ticket while feeling the stares and uncomfortable vibes, I proceed to the diner INSIDE THE THEATER, were I once again feel the stares. Fast forward to the theater, as I am siting the theater where my movie will play I’m feeding my face, without a breath to spare lol. I went to see Woodlawn by the way, which is an AWESOME MOVIE!!!
Everything was going normally as I am used to the uncomfortable stare, because some people feel as if only they belong in certain areas or only they deserve nice things. The movie was great and that theater was full of diversity, not african american but everything else, which made me feel a little better. The movie was also made by believers so one would assume everyone had the same beliefs. It felt that way even if it were not accurate information.
The movie was over and I was walking out, and there was a caucasian man, his wife and his two daughters in front of me. I was walking at what I believe to be my regular pace and I see him look back and slow down. He slows down to get in the back of his family as if I was going to cause some sort of harm.
He ends up holding the door for me, and I say thank you and get no response. He also does this for the second door. I keep walking towards my car and make sure I stay far away from them while I do this.
I get in the car and I am on fire inside, absolutely pissed off! Why would he assume I wanted to harm, or steal from them? Was it my clothes? Was it because I was black?
Now the first response I connected it to was my race of course, because this was surely not the first or last time I would encounter this, but it made me mad.
What it really and honestly did was hurt my feelings. I wanted to stop and have a few choice words with him while he was holding the door, I wanted to fight him and his whole family. Yet in the midst of my irritation and rage God began to speak to me.
The enemy wants us to be racist, he wants us to relate everything to race so that we will stay divided and talk badly about other ethnicities. He wants us to take offense to stupid things, and blow them up to be something it is not.
I had been through that before, not as bad and that time, but that particular time really made me upset. I thought about how hard I have prayed for God to help me become a better woman, and not become someone who is racist. Needless to say it is hard. Yet in that moment God showed me grace, it could have been opposite that day, no matter what color he was.
It is my job to pray for him, and not talk bad about him. I love that man, and i forgave him that day, because it’s not really about race it’s about division. I believe if my generation would grasp that it’s bigger than skin, we could approach everything differently and change our world….We have been placed in stereotypes and and forgotten that we have the power to label ourselves otherwise. People always choose to focus on the bad. I have had all colors and flavors of friends, and their is nothing more power than a group of people with different backgrounds coming together on a common ground. Unity is what we need….
just think about that…
With Love, E
Revelation of The Redeemed 