Multicultural Metro Musings

Every day, at approximately 8:40 a.m., I run down the escalator and into the opening doors of the Glentmont-bound red line train at the Van-Ness/UDC stop, wishing I had left my house just five minutes earlier so I could stop for a real breakfast on my way to the office.

Usually, my eyes are glued to the pages of my latest Borders purchase and my ears are occupied by the sounds of my deafeningly loud iPod. But, yesterday was different. As I stood reading and secretly dancing in my head with my back pressed against the plexi-glass panel by the deadly metro doors, I suddenly felt a strange heat. Not the usual summertime-on-the-train heat, but the heat an ant must feel right before it shrivels up and dies as a result of an obnoxious 9-year-0ld boy's discovery that a magnifying glass and the sun combine to make a deadly weapon.

I let my eyes follow the blazing path to figure out where it was coming from. When I discovered the origin of the searing heat, I was overcome by a mix of feelings - horror, shock, and amusement.

Staring, he stood across from me, leaning against the opposite plexi-glass panel, dressed in his blue-and-white-striped button-down and fresh-from-Zips cleaners khakis. Roughly about 5'10" and surprisingly attractive, he seemed unmoved when my deep, brown eyes met his crystal, blue ones. Yes -- I said it, his blue eyes.

Horrified, my mind was filled with thoughts of white men reducing black women to hyperserxualized objects built for their enjoyment in slavery days. I saw images of white men sneaking into slave quarters and planting their seeds in dark wombs to produce biracial babies, perpetuating the color caste system that continues to plague the Black community.

Shocked, I was surprised that he was blatantly and obviously staring at me. I wondered what he was thinking. Being a dark-skinned (yes, chocolate, blah blah) girl, I've become accustomed to not being the object of attention of Black men who have succumbed to the disease of colorism. So, I was surprised to see this melanin-challenged man completely absorb me with his gaze.

Amused, as I inwardly laughed at the thought of bringing him home to my family and friends, and imagining him trying to dance with me and not catching one beat.

I guess he felt a mix of embarrassment and familiarity after staring me down for eight minutes, because as I turned to exit the train as it pulled into my stop, he softly, but confidently said goodbye.

As I walked up the escalator steps and feverishly searched for my metro card in my new, but still messy, purse, I asked myself if I could ever love a blue-eyed man. While, I never say never, it is difficult for me to even imagine how such a relationship would even begin, when with every fiber of my being I have always been suspicious of what's behind the eyes that Toni Morrison's Pecola wanted so desperately. Would those eyes ever see me -- not past my color, not in spite of my race, not disregarding my heritage -- but all of those things, all of me?

I snapped back into reality, with the sobering thought that if those of my own kind cannot appreciate all of me, then I would not have to worry about it.