a bit of tolerance, please?

i had the privilege of traveling to baltimore, md. a week ago for an associated collegiate press workshop for student editors. i knew that i would learn a lot about journalism, but i never imagined i'd learn so much about life and the shallow, static minded world that i live in.

i had planned the trip about a month in advance of our departure. i knew that i wanted to attend the workshop, but i didn't want to fly to the east coast alone, so i thought about the lsl staff who might want to attend as well. (i will take this time to admit that, as independent as i pretend to be, i am a dependent creature who craves company.)

i thought about all of my colleagues and decided that the person who deserved to travel to this conference needed to fit a list of criteria: 1) a staff member who showed promise of sticking with the lsl for a while 2) someone who was eager to learn more in order to help our publication and himself and 3) someone who was willing to jump on a plane and fly to the east coast with me.

my adviser counseled that i should take an underclassman who could really take what was offered and apply it to the staff for a few years to come. that made the choice evident: ryan brown, sophomore online edition editor, should be invited to accompany me on this trip.

after talking to ryan and confirming that he wanted to go (note: his enthusiasm was extremely refreshing!) i put the trip to the back of my mind for a few weeks.

when my alarm went off at 3 a.m. on the morning of aug. 2, i thought twice before i hit the snooze button. i had a 7 a.m. plane to catch, and i was scheduled to meet ryan at the san antonio airport at 5 a.m. (gross.) the worst part was the hour long drive on that lonely stretch of i-35 with the drunks and the rig drivers. i did begin to get excited when i called ryan to make sure that he was on his way to the airport.

i arrived at sat a few minutes before ryan did, so i checked in and checked my luggage. there was a starbucks coffee across from the delta ticket counter, so i ordered my cafe mocha and sat to wait on ryan to arrive. a middle-aged man sat next to me and thumbed through the day's issue of the san antonio express news. after a few minutes, he noticed me peering through the glass and asked me if i was waiting on someone. i nodded and stood up as ryan walked around the corner.

"there he is, in fact," i said.

the man gazed through the glass. when he saw that ryan and i were waving, he gave me a smug, "oh," and turned away from me.

i didn't think much of this. in fact, i'm not sure that i had given it a second thought until about three days later. ryan checked in. we went through the security check point, and sat at our gate for a while. (irony: we ended up seeing two of our professors and kyle, the director of reslife while sitting at the airport at 6 a.m.) we boarded our plane, and off we were to baltimore (after a nice, long, unappealing layover in atlanta).

we grabbed our baggage and headed to the taxi claim, caught a cab, and were ripped off when we weren't offered the airport departure rate to our hotel. we walked up to the check in counter at the marriott inner harbor at camden yards and were half-heartedly greeted by tavia, a wide-eyed black woman who appeared to be in her early 40s. this is where our real adventure began.

tavia eyed me suspiciously, with a look of malice that i couldn't help but notice. i really didn't take time to think about the reasoning behind her less-than-cheerful expression at me; after all, working as a hotel receptionist must be trying. i paid my half of the bill (ryan and i were splitting our hotel room) and ryan stepped up to pay his half. she greeted him with a smile and proceeded to help him and encouraged him to enjoy his stay, as she flicked me another bad look. i bit my tongue and didn't say anything; it wasn't worth starting our trip on a sour note.

we settled in for the night. neither of us had slept for nearly 30 hours, so a night's rest came unopposed.

the following morning, we attended various workshops on journalism, where we took notes and started dreaming up improvements that can be made for our publication. after a few hours of solid work, we decided to take the six block walk from the marriott to the harbor at camden yards to find a bite to eat and do some shopping.

as we walked together, talking over our plans for the lsl online edition, i couldn't help but notice that ryan and i were getting unusual stares from strangers-- mainly white men and black women. i subconsciously checked myself in car reflections a few times, but i couldn't find anything wrong with my outward appearance so i shrugged off the looks and continued to tour the harbor and enjoy a p.f. chang's dinner.

the next day, ryan and i returned to the inner harbor to get a little shopping done. we found a great mall and headed into a shoe store. i found a great pair of closed toe canvas wedges and ryan headed for the sun glasses. i was about to find out exactly why people had been giving me dirty looks since i had first noticed them in the airport coffee shop.

the shoe store clerk handed me my shoes to try on and she leaned down to ryan and whispered, "why are you with her?"

she turned back around, slipped me another ill look, and walked off, peeking at ryan over her shoulder.

suddenly, it all made sense. people had a real problem seeing a young, white woman with a young, black man.

to the public eye, ryan and i were not colleagues traveling together on a business trip, and we certainly were not friends out on a shopping trip. we, this man and this woman, must be a couple. i laughed out loud.

ryan and i discussed the issue openly, as soon as i realized what the silent commotion was all about. he admitted that he had been getting stares and comments since the beginning of the trip every time he was seen with me.

i was dumbfounded. i just didn't (and still don't) understand why it was such a big deal to complete strangers that i was traveling with a black man. why does the thought of an interracial couple bother people so damn much? while both ryan and i knew that there were no romantic ties or implications at all, the rest of the world automatically assumed that there would be no other explanation for our company. it genuinely bothered people to see ryan and i together. it made people mad.

and that made me confused. i haven't ever dealt with racism before. i've been sheltered in a small town where everyone was friendly, regardless of race (for the most part) and it was never a big deal to be seen with any one shade of skin.

naivety. sweet, horrid naivety.

suppose, for a second, that i, a white woman, was in a relationship with a black man, such as ryan brown. if i am happy, why and how would that cause anyone to be affected in a negative way? why, and how, can love be anything but good? does love recognize the boundaries of color? my boyfriend, whose name is (conveniently) ryan, is a white man. but, if he were black, would i live in that world where people hate me and i am referred to as "her" in such a negative way, every day? should the color of my skin affect who i travel with? who i shop with? who i mingle with?

i'm not asking for everyone to be in an interracial relationship but i am asking for a little tolerance, please.