During my first year and a half in Houston, I used the bus to get from work and back. I had to learn to survive in a city that seemed impossible to do without a car. Sometimes i still miss the systematic approach planning my weekends around bus schedules. Though, it also allowed me to meet some very nice people who rode the bus.
There were two conversations that i had which hit home to me which I wanted to share briefly. The first was with a really nice black lady who went to school at Texas Southern(close to UH). At the end of the conversation and where she got off the bus, she mentioned to me that I was the only white person that she had ever spoken to at length and that she didnt have any friends who were white. I was saddened at the statement since I thought that in a city with such diversity as Houston. the color of your skin would mean little when it came to friendships. The second instance was when I had a great conversation with a black elderly man and a younger black lady during my way home from work. I really enjoyed speaking to both of them and learning about their lives. I happened to mention that i had grown up in Sweden close to the end of the conversation and the elderly black man said to me that it now makes since why I would even talk to them. The allusion to his statement was that he was under the impression that no white American(born and raised in the U.S.) would've spent the time listening and speaking to him or the younger lady. All i did was make some effort to have a conversation with a normal human being.
I had made the decision long ago that skin color did not matter to me. I wanted to see each and every person in the eyes that God wants me to see them as. I'm saddened that this is still a struggle in the U.S. and around the world. I can't believe how much hatred there has been and still is for someone that happens to have been blessed with a different skin color than my own. God has made every human being in His image and we should not judge God's work based on our own sinful understanding. May God remind you and I this day that we should love one another as He first loved us.
