Skin color is schism in dating

"Oooooooohhh, sompin' ain't right here!"

It was this statement, repeated twice, which drew my attention to the table of angry faces glowering at a female friend and myself one recent afternoon in the campus food court. At first, I thought they were addressing someone els e. What could we have done to make them so angry? Then I realized what nefarious transgression we had committed. We were standing together, talking.

You see, my companion was an African-American woman. She is a compassionate, intelligent, beautiful woman who hails from Eritria, in Northeast Africa. She didn't notice the four African-American men who sat shaking their heads in theatrical disapproval, but they had obviously noticed us.

Such is often the lot of interracial couples here at Cal S tate Long Beach and throughout the rest of society. Someone is always watching. Someone always feels entitled to an opinion about your choice of mates.

My friend and I are just that, friends, and nothing more, but in the minds of the four men who s at appraising us in the food court, we had committed the gravest of sins; we, a Caucasian man and an African-American woman, were obviously friends and might even be (Oooooooohhh no, sompin' ain't right here!) a couple.

I know from personal experien ce that anyone who strays from their "own kind" in courtship runs the risk of hostility Ñ both from members of their own ethnic group and from those of their mate's. Taunts, threats and stares are to be, if not expected, then at least accepted as a nor mal part of any outing's itinerary.

I'm sure that African-American men and women meet with harassment from Caucasians and other African-Americans as a result of dating a Caucasian. The fact that I've only gotten static from African-American people j ust proves redneck attitudes about "race mixing" don't stop at color lines.

It's hard enough to find someone with whom one can be happy. It seems overwhelmingly unfair for others to try to disallow that happiness on the basis of racial bigotry.