the outward appearance of things....

Our boarder is still with us, and is looking at a small house (a rent to buy) tomorrow. He has already tried to check out two places, and both suddenly became unavailable upon further investigation. Our friend is black, and this is a small town, predominantly white. It crossed my mind early on and stayed in the back of my head...still honestly I never thought race would be a problem. But there doesn't seem to be any other real explanation. So tomorrow my husband and his mother are accompanying this man to his appointment. My husband's family has lived in this town since Moses left Egypt-I think Dave's grandmother must have rode the returning waves to America before Leif Erickson. So they do have name recognition and reputation capital to rely on. And can vouch for our friend's character, ability to pay, qualities that would make a trustworthy individual renter.

It got me to thinking. There is so much talk about racial issues in our country-so much about the generation gap, blah, blah...but it all comes down to individual people. I may not know about all the rest of the people of color in our country, but I do know our friend and I trust him. He's a good man. I don't know about this generation that supposedly is going to hell in a handbasket, but I do know my daughters and their friends. They don't look like me, nor do they necessarily think like I do, but they are faithful friends and my girls are loving individuals. Is it so hard to simply start a conversation with one person? I'm beyond tired of being categorized by religious beliefs, politics, sex, race, age, tattoos/no tattoos-the heart's the thing, and we're human after all.