What traits would you hope the person your child is dating would have? respectful, kind, and caring, maybe? Well to some people race is also on that list, but not for Mississipi mother Heather Boyer. Recently, her daughter began dating someone new, who happened to also be black and she undoubtedly approved because of the way he treated her. He had all the characteristics that she felt her daughter deserved in a boyfriend, but when her daughter changed her profile picture to an image of the young couple, her mom received a racist text that revealed the sad truth that not everyone shared her views on what mattered in a relationship.

Image credits: heather.boyer

Boyer received a text about the profile picture from someone who thought she may have an issue with the skin color of her daughter’s new boyfriend. The mom was taken aback, but instead of responding to the text in a negative way she chose to use the experience to create a larger response to this kind of mentality and wrote a heartfelt Facebook post about the experience.

Image credits: heather.boyer

“Today my daughter changed her profile picture. After maybe 5 minutes I get a text ..” I didn’t know she was dating a black boy, did you?” It took me all day to think up a response, which I didn’t send personally but thought I would share for anyone else that “may not know” Yes in fact I did know, but the color of his skin doesn’t define who he is. What does define who is he is how he treats my daughter. I see my daughter dating a boy that comes to my house and shows me nothing but respect (a big deal in my book). It’s always Yes Ma’am, No Ma’am, we talk about football and baseball, he tells me bye when he leaves, and has not once shown me a lack of manners or respect.
I see my daughter dating a boy who treats her good. He takes her on dates, to ballgames, out to eat..not to a club or partying on the weekends.
I see my daughter dating a boy who takes her to church with him. Every Sunday. He plays in the band, she sits with his family. How many young men these days make church a priority? None of the others have.
He doesn’t hit her, cuss her, lie to her, or make her cry. Would I rather her date a white boy that did, to keep from her dating another race? Absolutely not. So that’s my response to the question I was asked. And I know people have their own opinion, but at the end of the day, the fact that my daughter has someone that loves her and treats her like a queen makes me happy. That’s something I’ve never had in my life and I’m glad she does.”

People loved the post and responded with photos of their own interracial relationships

According to census.gov, the percentage of U.S married-couple households that are interracial or interethnic grew from 7.4 percent in 2000 up to 10.2 percent and in 2016 it grew 2.8 more percentage points. While there was an overall increase across the nation, in Missippi where Boyer lives, most counties did not see a significant change.

And were shocked that in this day and age people were still so narrow-minded

Boyer was touched by all the loving posts and said the responses to her post had been overwhelmingly positive

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