Interracial Coupledom

Today’s blog post is different from my usual format. It is the first in what may turn into a series of posts with my partner, Emily Meadows. With this format we will tackle topics with a back and forth dialog to offer our differing perspectives. Today we’re talking about our experiences as an interracial couple.

Emily note: we’re capitalizing the word ‘Black’ but we aren’t capitalizing the word ‘white.’ Why? Because Black Lives Matter, motherfuckas! HAHA, no — we discussed it and decided that capitalizing Black felt right; it is that simple. Also, disclaimer — this is about us and our personal experiences and points of view. We don’t profess to be experts in anything, just our own selves.

Have you ever dated a person of a different racial background before?

Emily:

Yes, but not this seriously. The last white dude I dated was a fling. This white dude is a keeper, which makes this much higher stakes. We also have kids, both of us, from previous marriages. So, while we’re figuring out our individual and joint / coupled racial identities, we’re also framing them with and for our kids.

I suppose that I should actually identify myself. I, Emily, am biracial and adopted. Growing up in Northern Virginia in the late ‘70’s / early ‘80’s, I was identified as Black. I was really half black and half white, but that old ‘one drop rule’ applied. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the ‘one drop rule’ is as follows — if you have any percentage of Black in you, you’re considered Black. I was raised by a white family, though, so you can imagine how fucking confused I was. I didn’t really fit in with the Black kids because culturally I was white. But my skin wasn’t white. So I had friends of all colors and identities growing up, and really felt like a misfit until I got to college.

I can’t remember exactly when it happened, but in college I heard the term ‘biracial’ for the first time. It was as if the heavens opened up and rays of light beamed down on me. I could hear the angels singing — BIIIIRRRAAACCCIIAAALLLLL. THAT WAS ME! I felt ‘seen’ for the first time, and it felt great. Side note, imagine many years later when Barack Obama came on to the scene and he was biracial? Oooo la la. I’m just sayin’. ;)

Anyhow, back to our topic. I was a late bloomer and didn’t date much until I was in my twenties. My first serious-ish boyfriend was of Latinx heritage. He was beautiful — he had brown skin and blue eyes. But he was a dick. Moving on. I ultimately found and married someone JUST LIKE ME. A dude who was biracial. As you can imagine, the shared identity gave us much to build a marriage on. And then we divorced. NEXT QUESTION!

Brett:

Not really. My hometown, Ellensburg, is not terribly diverse ethnically, and while I did go on a few dates with a Latina woman, my only real girlfriend before college was white. WSU seemed far more diverse than the ‘Burg, but was still predominantly white. Between my ex-wife (also white) and Emily, I did go on a number of first dates, only one of whom was not white (she was also Latina).

According to 23 and Me I’m as diverse a human as you get when you mix British and German DNA.

Emily:

HAHA, ^ he’s funny. 23 and Me says I’m 54% European (primarily Eastern European / Polish), and 44% Sub-Saharan African (primarily West African / Nigerian). I suppose you can say we have our British (6.5% for me) and German (14.3%) in common? But my African side came to Virginia on a slave ship.

What were your biggest surprises?

Emily:

There were surprises. For both of us. I can’t wait to see how Brett answers this question. When Brett and I first started dating, I remember telling him that my kids and I talk about everything — racial identity, how babies are made, HOW babies are made, whether God exists, etc. I don’t know that he understood how much we talk about these things, but at his first dinner with my kids (who were 7 and 9 at the time), I think they brought up race AND sex during the same meal. I remember worrying that Brett’s kids would get more of an education about race from me / my kids than they ever wanted or needed. Looking back over the past few years, I think this has proven to be true. At a recent family dinner, one of the kids said something about a ‘race card’ and I explained why I didn’t like that term. And we all moved on. These conversations happen a lot, and we learn together.

The racial injustices this year (2020) really brought all of this to the forefront of our daily lives and relationships. George Floyd has never made me feel more Black. I don’t know if that makes sense, but all of a sudden I was remembering every time I have been followed around a store, or carried a receipt on top of an unbagged item so everyone knows I paid for it, or questioned by police because ‘some black person’ stole something from a JC Penney, and I happen to have brown skin. These things all happened to me. And I didn’t realize how different my experiences were from white people’s experiences until I met Brett.

During the Coronavirus lockdown, Brett and I got into a routine of walking a few miles every evening. One night we were out, and we walked by a police car with an officer sitting inside. The office waved to us. WAVED. TO. US. That has never, in my entire life, happened to me. I turned to Brett in that moment and said, ‘wow — that there is white privilege, and I am getting proxy privilege because I’m with you.’ I was stunned. This is how the other half live!

Anyhow, back to George Floyd. The George Floyd thing happened, and I was SHOOK. Brett wasn’t. He asked a lot of questions. I didn’t ask questions because I didn’t care about the circumstances; here we had a Black man who was killed for being Black, ON CAMERA. I wrestled with it, and I cried, and I finally told Brett that I needed him to care about George Floyd as much as I cared. I laid it out there. And you know, Brett went deep and learned and cared.

But our different skin color does give us different mental models, every time another Black person is shot or killed. I get emotional; Brett asks questions. I remind him that it doesn’t matter if the person had a knife or a gun, that the double standards are so blatant and awful. Brett tries to understand and see things from my perspective, but it’s just so foreign to him.

Here’s what scares me. Brett is a smart, college-educated, liberal, lovely human. If there is anyone who should ‘get it’ when it comes to race, it’s him. So if HE is asking this many questions, what are all of the other white people doing?

Overall does skin color matter? FUCK NO. But it does, right? It both matters and doesn’t matter. It’s what makes us US. And our kids are watching everything we do and say, so it matters that much more.

Brett:

I don’t remember anything being specifically surprising when we started dating. Our fourth date was to the Seattle Art Museum and there were some Black artists showcased at that time and I could tell that that was meaningful to Emily. She really wanted to understand the context behind the art. Over the course of our first year together she actively sought out paintings from Black artists and it emerged as an overall theme in her home.

Several months after the SAM date I met Emily and her kids for dinner (a big step in divorced parent dating) and the topic of racism came up. Her son in particular found the whole concept of judging others based on the color of their skin confusing. I did my best to engage with the conversation in a thoughtful way. At one point the group agreed that some white people are very ignorant which prompted her daughter to apologize to me, to which I tried to make it clear that we don’t all think that way.

I’ve done my best to be supportive in this era when police brutality against minorities has re-entered the daily headlines, which has clearly had a personal effect on Emily. It’s very challenging because obviously I can’t offer my own experiences as she works to make sense of things. Her ex is also biracial which was an important part of their connection and I am occasionally intensely aware of my contrast to him as a white guy. But in the end it’s ok, both members of a couple don’t need to have the same backgrounds or interests in order to be successful (last night she tried to enumerate the major characters of Star Wars and omitted Han Solo, heresy!).

I have to credit Emily with being pretty cool about racial topics. I try to be very cautious when Black and white topics come up, but I always have something to say and she doesn’t make me feel like I’m wading through a minefield when I do, which is a common anxiety for white liberals. We engage each other as people with different experiences and perspectives, both with something to contribute.

I can admit that as a 1st grader I hurled the n-word in the schoolyard (directed at other white kids) until my mother explained what it meant. In high school I thought that affirmative action should be outlawed because it was unfair. In college I once wrote an essay arguing that there should be no HBCUs because Black students and white students should be together. Emily doesn’t judge the present version of me based on the ignorance of my past. This allows us to be open, honest and vulnerable to each other.

Hopefully my efforts to be a comfort to her in these turbulent times are working, but only she knows for certain. I try to be careful to listen and not explain, because I can’t relate to these issues the way that she can. This is a time when I need to focus on learning.