I have always gotten some looks.

I am a six-foot tall redhead and because of that, I simply stick out in a crowd. During my first semester of college here at NT, I stuck out to Eugene, and he to me. He is a handsome, tall black man with an afro. We became boyfriend and girlfriend without more than a few thoughts of the racial differences. We were too much alike and too complementary of each other to worry about such things. Unfortunately, society has had a different agenda.

It took me a while to realize we were often watched. The looks I was used to getting became stares. There was one particular time in which I noticed a person indiscreetly gawking at Eugene and me holding hands. We were walking into my favorite restaurant and out of the corner of my eye, I managed to catch a woman staring. She quickly turned away when I looked back. It is interesting how she believed we were doing something that should be hidden. But it is hard to hide racism and judgmental eyes.

Later, after we were seated, the woman and her friend were sitting at a table to the left of us. She continued to stare. I did not learn to recognize this type of stare until Eugene and I spent more time together out in public and away from campus.

The NT campus has always been accepting and loving. Our friends and family are very receptive and have displayed no ill feelings towards our relationship, racial or otherwise.

Racism in this country is still alive, and I for the first time have really begun to experience it. There was a time in which a black man would be shot with a bullet for courting a white woman. Fortunately, that is all it was, a time. But now, an interracial couple will get shot with looks.

This realization made me rather disconcerted. Eugene and I are a very happy couple with plans to get married one day. I cannot help but worry for the children we will bear and the looks they will get as well.

Eugene grew up on a United States Air Force base in England, and it became fairly apparent that the military base surpassed the civilian world in terms of social acceptance. Besides the occasional cruel child throughout his youth, his life on the base was not racially unbearable. When he was in middle school, children actually told him he was not "white enough" or "black enough" to hang out with them. This did not happen to him until middle school and became less of a problem throughout high school.

I was a witness to a racial discrimination in elementary school. When I was in fifth grade, I remember a biracial girl having several children ruthlessly antagonize her about her race and her parents. It was surprising that the children knew so many derogatory remarks at a young age. After her mother came to class to speak about it, the racist behavior continued, but only in whispers. Eugene never experienced anything like that when he was very young, and I believe he was lucky to have grown up on the base. With this in mind, he and I have considered moving to an Air Force base once we have children. We believe this may be best for me and for the children.

Eugene has mentioned that he believes raising biracial children will be much harder for me than for him. This of course would be true given that he grew up in a house of many races. Perhaps it will be so, but I know that those children will be creations yielded from the love and trust between us. I would go through a world of persecution and bigotry if it meant we could be together. I hope that society will not try to force Eugene and me, or any other interracial couples, to be ashamed of our relationships. This is America, where freedom is cherished and progression is crucial.

However, the pressure of society causes certain freedoms to be infringed upon. I wish for a world that is blind to race -- where no one judged upon their skin tones and features, but by their character and heart.

I hope that my children do look like him, so it can be apparent to the world that there are two more people who believe race is inconsequential.

Kelli Garl is a computer science junior from McKinney. She can be reached at kel_2002@hotmail.com. �

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