Have I Bought into 'Whiteness’?: A Candid Look at Interracial Relationships
Close your eyes and imagine a perfect morning. You wake up in a comfortable bed, as the subtle smell of breakfast foods waft in. You stretch your arms overhead and look over to your right. The sun dances on your significant other’s skin, who is still fast asleep. Who is it nestled beside you under the layers of white bedding? Are you running your hands through dark brown curly hair? Is his skin alabaster white, or is it olive, or mahogany? What does your fantasy mate look like?
During my pre-adolescence in New York City, my first crushes were a Trinidadian boy; followed by a Guyanese dougla; then a Korean boy; a red-headed Irish boy; and an older Jewish guy from Long Island. Maybe because of my Brooklyn upbringing, I have always found beauty in people of varying ethnic backgrounds and hues. Yet, even as a teenager, I dreamed of a tall, highly educated dark skinned Black man as my future husband. As a dark skinned Black girl, I was adamant about not buying into the colorist notions of marrying a non-Black man, to ensure that my children would not be dark skinned like me. When I was 21, I met a tall, dark skinned man from West Africa, who was wrong for me in every way. However, he checked all of the boxes that I had envisioned for my life partner. When that relationship soured, I became an equal opportunity dater, spending time with Latino, Eurasian, Native American, white and Black men. Now, years later, I am part of an interracial couple, and wake up next to a tall, educated German white man with olive skin and blue eyes.
Due to geographic proximity and societal expectations, most people marry someone from a similar background, be it the same religion, race, or cultural group. Yet, occasionally some individuals go against the “norms”, and form interracial relationships, like the newly elected Vice President, who is married to a white man. In politics, as in the entertainment industry, there have been numerous examples of interracial partnerships. In the U.S., where racism against interracial couples was codified in miscegenation laws, the rate of interracial marriage has increased fivefold from 3% of all weddings in 1967 to 17% in 2015.
On blogs and in comment sections on social media, many members of the public often express how they feel about these mixed race marriages. These comments can range from condemnation and overt racism against interracial couples, to praise about their partnerships. Now in the wake of the post-Trump era and its increase in blatant racist tropes, I began to wonder if I had bought into whiteness by marrying a European man. I wanted to know how Black women like myself, in interracial marriages were faring during these times? Although I read the comments on Instagram and YouTube channels, I was curious to know how the public really felt about interracial relationships between Black women and white men.
Social Media and Interracial Relationships: Fetishism for Capitalistic Pursuits
Some time ago, while strolling on Miami Beach, my husband and I encountered an associate who exclaimed that we looked like a YouTube couple. Intrigued by this comparison, Tino and I went online to figure out exactly what she was referring to. We quickly came across numerous videos of Black-woman-white-man partnerships. Some of the videos were obvious racial click bait with titles such as, “Why Are You Dating A Black Woman?”, “Waxing Armpit Hair At Home With My Black Girlfriend”, and “Boyfriend Sees My Afro For The 1st Time.” Regardless of the topic, these YouTube channels had millions of followers and paid sponsors.
In the comment sections, the channels’ fans gushed over the most mundane aspects of the young couples’ lives. After viewing several of these posts, often pausing to comment on what we watched, we agreed that these snapshots of interracial couple life, weren’t reflective of our own interracial relationship. For us, it seemed that lurking under the surface of ‘how to make dinner for a family of 4”, was the unspoken objective of fetishizing interracial unions for the purpose of profit. As one Black female vlogger stated, “YouTubers in general know the trends that will make you blow up. One trend is just having a boyfriend or a couple’s channel. If that boyfriend is white and is good looking? That’s it.”
After much reflection, Tino and I concluded that although these were videos of real life couples, these people were not representative of interracial couples around the globe. To us, they were spectacles, engaging in a highly racialized performance. There were many instances where the female’s race was the central issue of the post. As one Twitter user wrote, “It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that some element of ‘Blackness’ is presented as an obstacle that needs to be overcome in the titles of all these videos.” Yes, as in all relationships, cultural differences must be addressed; but, as my husband queried, why aren’t there videos about a Black woman learning about the stages of sunburn and the subsequent peeling of her spouse’s skin?
Furthermore, these ‘swirl’ YouTube channels (interracial relationship advice platforms) seem to reinforce the perception of how the wider society views Black women. In the white patriarchal society that is the U.S., Black women are still at the bottom of the proverbial totem pole of desirability and marriageability, with dark skinned Black women being even more marginalized. In many instances, the Black women featured on these YouTube couple channels are dark skinned. As user melanin_monore-93 wrote on The Shade Room, “but when a darkskin wom[a]n marrie[s] outside of her race, here comes most of the bitter black men that wouldn’t even acknowledge them.” These channels tap into the sensitive topic of, why aren’t some Black women getting married?
Since YouTube functions as a form of entertainment, these channels also tap into the subversive narrative of, “what if the fairy tale princess isn’t white”? If we, Black women are truthful, then we must admit that for many Black and brown girls, their first love objects were white men. From Jesus to Prince Eric in the Little Mermaid, the idea of a “Prince Charming” type disrupting the story, and foregoing a blonde princess for a kinky curly haired side character, bucks at normality. Maybe this is one of the explanations for the almost childlike giddiness over a Black woman-white male pairing, as social media platform users hashtag interracial couple goals. It must be noted that the viewers of these channels are, “88% female, predominantly black, with a near 50/50 split between the US and the UK.” In turn, one could conclude that these channels peddle in fantasy; presenting their wares to one of the most vulnerable demographics: unmarried Black women.
Different Types of Interracial Couples: Black woman vs Black man
In early January, Matt James, the first Black-presenting (he is in fact biracial) male contestant of the Bachelor stated, ‘People want you to end up with a certain type of person.” He was alluding to the pressure he feels to hand the final rose to a Black woman. Black Twitter quickly jumped on this statement as a warning for the audience ‘to not get too excited about a Black love story showing up on their television screen.’ As a Black woman who has interacted with many Black men who don’t like Black women, this statement by James did not come as a surprise. I recalled back in 2015 at a pool party where a Black man who was not in my friend group kept repeatedly stating, “I just like Kardashian types.” No one in my circle was interested in him, but he felt driven to let us know that he preferred women who weren’t Black from different ethnic backgrounds. After I had had a few drinks, which lowered my threshold of giving a care, I quipped, ‘Well, I guess I like ‘foreigns’ too’. ‘Foreigns’ was a common term used by rappers at the time, describing how they liked their women and their cars.
A quick scroll through The Shade Room and one will readily find a heated debate about interracial couples. A Black man will call Black women bitter for not supporting an interracial relationship between a Black man and a non-Black woman; to which a Black woman might respond, “that’s why I’m getting me a Ken!” The same hackneyed conversation plays out over and over again like a script. However, what this battle seems to reveal is a deeper hurt that Black men do not find Black women desirable.
If Black women, especially dark skinned Black women, are deemed low on the desirability totem pole, there must be an insidious explanation for a Black woman and Caucasian man pairing. The Black woman in an interracial partnership is either 1)seeking refuge after being ignored or castigated by Black men or 2)looking for financial support that only a wealthy white man can provide. There is always a reason, and that reason is rarely believed to be love or mutual desire. The varying experiences of Black men vs Black women in the marriage market, further lays the foundation for many stereotypes about BW-WM interracial relationship issues. Racist ideologies about masculinity have hyper-sexualized the Black man, making him a desirable object for women of varying races and ethnic groups. A study from the Pew Research Center notes, “Black men are twice as likely as Black women to have a spouse of a different race or ethnicity (24% vs. 12%).”
Interracial Marital Problems: Power, Wealth and Whiteness
After the Capitol insurrection on January 6, Black Twitter quickly revealed that some of the insurrectionists were in interracial relationships, married to Black women and had biracial children. One Proud Boy member posted photos of his mixed race family to dispel notions of him being a racist, which other white men readily retweeted to bolster their cause. For hours, I scrolled through Twitter threads trying to understand how a Black woman could marry and have children with a white supremacist. And as I watched the terrorists parade on the TV screen waving Trump flags, I began to side eye my husband. Despite his liberal point of view and express abhorrence for anything anti-Black, my mind couldn’t help but wonder: Could my soul mate, the love of my life, be a secret white supremacist?
The writer, Rebecca Stevens A. speaks to this issue in her piece White Men and the Sexual Fetishization of Black Women where she contends that, “…Later, I came to realize that some of the men that insisted so much on loving Black women were in fact some of the most vile white supremacists and racists I would ever encounter in my life. Their hatred of Black people was so deeply rooted, so intense, that they went to great lengths to be with a Black woman in order to gain the sick and sadistic privilege of maltreating and oppressing her. Many of my Black friends that married these types of men were often subject to domestic violence including regular verbal abuse containing derogatory racist insults.” The racialized component of these women’s abuse is even more disturbing when viewed from the lens of past hegemonic ‘interracial couples with racism’ (i.e. Sally Hemmings and President Thomas Jefferson).
For centuries, women of color throughout the world have been sexually victimized by white men. Stevens A. addresses this very point when she says, , “[Black women have been] dehumanized to legitimize and justify abhorrent sexual and non-sexual violence that has been perpetrated against our bodies for centuries.” Despite being the victims of white men’s sexual aggression, time and again these ‘dark women’ have also been labeled temptresses; who with their wily ways seduced white men. Unfortunately, this fetishization of non-white women has persisted into the modern era. In turn, for many women of color, who date outside of their race, there is a valid concern about being viewed as a sexual object, opposed to a partner. How does a Black woman in an interracial relationship tease out if a man is motivated by love for her or has preconceived notions of her sexual prowess, based solely on skin color? There is also another layer to the interracial relationship that must be explored: that of the white man’s need to legitimize his skills as a great lover, just by being in a relationship with a Black woman.
After overcoming concerns about a white partner’s ulterior motives, how do interracial couples balance their sexuality, within in the context of slavery and colonialism? In the controversial Broadway play, Slave Play, “…three interracial couples are tasked with role-playing white-black, master-slave relationships as a way to make sense of how their racial identities factor into their sex and personal lives.” In the Vox review of the play, the writer posed questions about the power dynamics and sexual roles that play out in both private and public spaces, as central interracial marriage problems. Couples and readers alike are left to grapple with: “[how] does the history of slavery continue to impact sex and power between these groups? [And] who holds whom accountable, if so?”
In contemporary life, the complexities of race and financial disparities, further complicate interracial relationships between Black women and white men. Due to past injustices, people with fairer skin hold more wealth and subsequently more power in most societies. For some Black women from financially disadvantaged backgrounds, dating or marrying a European man may be a means of economic advancement. The ‘gold digger trope’ is readily applied when a seemingly attractive young Black woman becomes involved with an unattractive, but wealthy older white man. This is often the lens through which such relationships are viewed in Africa and the Caribbean, where European expatriates wield power and possess wealth, within the neocolonial class structure. However, even in Western nations, the financial disparity between white men and Black women is sizable enough to encourage some relationships that are based on financial expediency.
As an Interracial Couple: what does this all mean for my marriage?
Over the past year, I’ve written a variety of articles addressing many of the mental health stressors for Black women in the African Diaspora. However, the article to date that has garnered the most responses has been the one focusing on my interracial marriage. In that article, I did not provide any coping strategies, nor was there any research, or anything that could help an individual’s mental wellbeing; nonetheless it has been the most widely read article to date. Believing there was a glitch in my Google Analytics report, I took the scholarly approach and researched which topics were trending with Black women on Google. ‘Interracial marriage’ and ‘interracial couples’ problems’, in all of its permutations, is a hot topic. Afterwards, I thought, “Well hell, lemme give the people what they want!”’ and contemplated pivoting my platform to focus on my interracial marriage, as a means to gain more traffic. However, after a sobering conversation with my husband, I decided against this approach.
I’m a Black woman and Tino is a white man. As a couple, we navigate the world being fully aware of the biases of others, as well as our own. I understand that despite Tino’s “wokeness” and the awareness of my own identity, we may still ascribe to some societal scripts about race and gender. I do not believe that white people are superior to Black people, and that having a white husband elevates me, as an individual. However, I do understand that some strangers may perceive that racism, interracial couples are not important issues. But one of the innate challenges of interracial couples: racism, cannot be ignored. One important aspect of our relationship is grappling with our cultural differences against the the backdrop of a very racist world. We talk about our love and sexuality in the context of slavery, colonialism, wealth disparities, and white privilege. We acknowledge that we can’t possibly get everything right and there will be cringe worthy moments over the years. However, the world’s attitudes on mixed marriages may continue to change with the times. Either way, Tino and I choose to focus on our partnership, our friendship, and each other. And every morning, when we peer over the comforter, finding the other person there, it feels like the best decision every time.
