By Stacey Lace

Columnist

I recently received a letter pleading with me to write about interracial relationships on campus. It seems that our romantic lives are lacking diversity. For example, the most diverse person I’ve ever dated here was from Canada. I know, you think it’s funny, eh?

Based on my sudden realization that I lack what others have, I had to employ the help of my friend, Whitney*. Whitney is commonly referred to as what some would call a strawberry blonde, or, what I call, Ginger Lite (GL for short).

During our first year, Whitney met and started dating Kushal*, an Indian electrical engineer. Kushal has since graduated, but he and Whitney are still together and have a simultaneously normal and dysfunctional relationship.

Some things I’d like to let you know about Whitney, so you can truly understand the context of this relationship:

Whitney has informed me that blonde guys turn her on (Kushal is pretty much the anti-blonde).

AND

She has a difficult time imagining her hair on her future half-Indian children’s heads (in reality, if she and Kushal were to have children, they probably wouldn’t look even slightly like her).

While these facts are seemingly pointless, they show how important Kushal’s personality is rather than Whitney’s prior ideas. Other than the ginger Indian children thing, Whitney has never once raised a concern to me about Kushal’s heritage. Her concerns are more along the lines of “he never visits me” or “Kushal is drunk dialing me from the street and a homeless man is walking him home.”

Whitney and Kushal have the same concerns in their long-distance relationship as the rest of us. When he doesn’t call, Whitney wonders what he’s up to and if he’s letting his partying ways get the best of him. When Whitney and I go out, she has to fight the same temptations I’m free to indulge in.

According to the College Board, 77 percent of University students are white. This doesn’t necessarily allow for a whole lot of on-campus interracial action. However, if Whitney and Kushal can find love of the same sweet, yet strange, kind as same-race couples, then there’s hope for all of us to find someone.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve learned a lot about relationships from Whitney and Kushal. While they have problems in their relationship, not one of those problems is related to their difference in race. Their problems are centered on their bad habits, bouts with trust, and the constant feeling of missing each other.

Maybe we should all take a hint from the two of them, put our racial blinders on and find love wherever we can.

*Names have been changed.