Interracial relationships can be tricky. Here’s everything I’ve learned
I am a single Black woman living in Montreal. West African, raised in France, and born again here, this is where I came into my own. My idea of love is tainted by European passion, North American glibness, African devotion and restraint, performative social media PDA and Jane Austen’s cheekiness. So, like most of us, I know nothing about the subject. But still, I have something to say about dating and being married as a Black woman (I have been divorced for four years now and single for almost a year).
All my life, I have lived in mostly white communities and was raised by my mother’s second husband, a white man. So from a very young age, I was witness to the stigma attached to their relationship and the fact that they were dating outside of their races. I myself have never been in a committed relationship with a Black man; I have actually mostly dated outside of my race. And from what I’ve learned about interracial relationships: love is a struggle you actually need to prepare for.
It seems counterintuitive to speak about love in terms of readiness. We have learned through books and movies that love is spontaneous and conquers all; it’s the ultimate leap of faith we need to be open to. And, it suggests that a connection with someone will have us reform our ideas of individuality. We think about love and relationships in terms of adventures, projects and plans, concessions and compromises. You compromise, you’re successful. You give space to the other to be who they truly, fully are, it works out.
However, I’ve found that there are things in a relationship that we cannot compromise. Things that we can’t push aside or “mitigate.” Things that are rooted so deep in ourselves that they can’t be ignored or negated. So, I’m offering a guide for affirming and reaffirming ourselves when dating outside our race, a readiness plan, an outline based on my own experience.
To get you ready, I am laying down here four of my experiences—cringey and offensive as they might have been. I am sharing with you what I’ve learnt from them so that you can navigate your own experiences better than I did.
THE “NEW TERRITORY” BRO
“I’ve never been with a Black woman before”
After a divorce or break-up, you get to explore, experience, paint the town red. I downloaded both Tinder and Bumble and I had no preferences except for age and location (no one wants to have to run across town for a little bit of affection). My phone was buzzing, I was answering, starting meaningless conversations, mindlessly swiping right and left, daydreaming and projecting insecurities on strangers. And then, I swiped right on one man, who was white. He had a picture with a car in it and he was wearing a nice suit, giving major frat boy vibes. I should have known—my own prejudice whispered that he did not date women like me.
Frat boy: Yo!
Me: Hi! How are you?
Frat boy: Good. You?
Me: Great! Quick question, just curious: why did you swipe right?
Frat boy, turned “New Territory” Bro: Well, I have never been with a mulatto before, seems to be fun!
And there it was! You would think that he would have at least tried to hide his intentions. But apparently, hiding behind a screen makes it okay to tell a Black woman that you want to try her out, check an item off your bucket list, validate your assumptions or bang a stereotype. Here I was, my entire existence reduced to an experiment.
I do not care to understand why this man would have thought it acceptable to make such a statement. What I’m interested in is what you face when that happens. It was a first for me and I was 27. From that moment, I had to confront the possibility that men could be interested in me only for my complexion. But it was not just my skin color, he did not say that he liked a good tan or that he had a preference for women of different cultural backgrounds. He mischaracterized my race, used the derogatory term “mulatto” in 2016, and engaged on the fact that sex with a Black woman would be fun. Blocked, I guess...
I had been aware of the stereotypes. We’re the lionesses in bed, yet we’re subservient and we would do anything for our men. Nothing phases us, we’re down for anything. We want a white man, it’s a great honor. We’ll smile and be sexy or bestial, or we’ll be sassy and “ratchet”. We’ll twerk on you and you’ll have something to laugh about with your friends. We’re “fiiiiiiiiine” but we’re not beautiful and delicate. You don’t have to respect us because we do not respect ourselves.
It was like being hit by a ton of bricks. Now, you get to think about all the interactions that you’ve ever had with white men. How genuine could they really have been? If he mentioned Nicki Minaj in the first five minutes of the conversation, could he have been looking for the full “Anaconda” experience? And then, is that why he never called back?
Now I always ask, defiantly, boldly, a warning, ready to extinguish and burn you to the ground, and I swear to God, we will have this conversation before anything else:
“Have you ever been with a Black woman before?”
TOP SHELVED COLOR BLINDNESS
“Because it doesn’t matter and we love each other”
Fun fact: I realized that I was Black when I was 11. Don’t get me wrong, I was “aware” of my melanin and my culture way before that, and it was always part of my identity. But, I had not fully internalized my Blackness until that age, when I began facing prejudice and internalized racism by members of my own race. In French Guyana, where everyone looks like me, being African was considered a flaw, a blemish that gives you less legitimacy than others. I realized that I was Black because I expected from them a recognition, a sisterhood, a metaphorical comforting handshake, a sameness, a “my people”-ness, and I did not get that. I was finally in a place where I did not have to explain my hair, my lips, my ass, the fact that yes, I can tan and that I need to cover my entire body in lotion, not just my face, and yet.
So I packed it inside, my Blackness.
And then years later, I moved to Montreal where I met my ex-husband. He had been with Black women before and I had never been with a white man before. For 7 years, we did not talk about race, just like before. I still introduced him to my West African culture and he introduced me to his. I felt accepted as I was, so why would we talk about race? We did not care.
And yet, I was braiding my hair in a closed door office. I was keeping daily microaggressions to myself, reserved for a journal at the bottom of a drawer in my office, under a stack of bills.
The danger of color-blindness, on both parts, is that your race still needs to express itself somehow—it’s still part of your identity. Instead, it is relegated to an office, a closet, a hidden bag of hair extensions on the top shelf of your laundry room.
When I was younger, it was easy; I could just go home. There was a place for race there, in my multi-racial home. We talked about prejudices and history, while watching Love Jones, as mom braided our hair.
In a relationship though, if we do not give it space to live amongst ourselves, we suffocate it. And then what? We raise our children to do the same. The hair extensions become relaxers or straighteners. Top shelved or bottom-drawered.
Years later…
“There is hair everywhere!” He said, standing in our living room. I’m watching TV, I have completed half of the left side of my head. My fro is vibrating. My hands are not tired, I can keep going and The Witcher is on. I smiled at the blue eyed and blond specimen in front of me, “I’ll clean up when I’m done.”
THE UNCONCERNED
“That’s not really my problem”
I’m enraged. I’m trembling. They killed him. I want to scream, I can’t cry. I want to bind them, strangle them, I want to burn their houses to the ground. But I’m sitting on the sofa and I’m watching George Floyd’s execution on the news. He, on the other hand, comes home, and he’s annoyed. The protest blocked the road and it’s a hassle to get home. He is the first person I talk to. He does not understand that I need to discharge my pain. He tells me “I’m tired, I’ve had a long day. I don’t feel concerned. I’m not like this, this has nothing to do with me.”
My mom is a big fan of Black love, and I grew up on titles Love Jones, Soul Food, Boyz n the Hood, and The Best Man. And then she brought home Sanaa Hamri’s movie Something New, about a successful Black woman who was navigating the Black dating pool, finally finding love with a white man. This romcom is intriguing, with race playing a big part in the on-screen relationship. I will always remember one particular scene when both characters are grocery shopping and Sanaa Lathan’s character references the fact that she is being discriminated against at work. “The white boys on the plantation are getting on my last nerves, that’s all”. And her counterpart replies, “Can we put the white boys on hold for tonight?” An argument ensues and they break up. I have always sided with Simon Baker’s character, her love interest. He was tired of having the same argument. He was accepting and aware so why talk about it again? He was white too, but not a racist, and so he felt attacked. He couldn’t carry the weight of his race's centuries of wrongdoings. I was empathetic. And in my mind, she was strong but always complaining.
I was wrong. He was tired that day, but she was exhausted all the time. Now, I am exhausted all the time. I need to talk about it and I need my partner to understand, to let my rage flow freely until it regains its place at the pit of my stomach, where it is when that old white lady clutches her purse when I’m walking behind her. I resented my partner that day, for the privilege he had of being able to complain about the roads, when a Black man was dead. I explained that he should be concerned, how this could have been me. We talked about having boys. It could be them.
In relationships, we can postpone conversations about people making fun of how we’re dressed. We can postpone conversations about what we will be eating for dinner. We will be able to compromise and we’ll take each other's suggestions into consideration. But this, we can’t compromise on, and we can’t postpone. This is a one way street. He walks it alongside me, concern in tow, or he doesn’t at all.
THE “WOKE” BRO
“I can’t believe you’ve never watched Malcolm X”
I love a good ally, it’s sexy. I think it’s cute when they take offense at the N-word in rap songs or when they feel invested on the subject of cultural appropriation. We all want a “woke” bro. He knows things. He will see and fiercely defend us against microaggressions. He wears his openness and his “wokeness” on his sleeve, or on that bright flag he unsheathes and waves every time he is around POC. No doubt it can be performative, and translate into the social media activism we have seen unleashed that past year; but I try to give the “woke” bro the benefit of the doubt.
Well, here’s the thing: I should not be grateful for any of this. In a perfect world, we are all “woke,” and my race shouldn’t be the dominant factor in my interracial relationship. I am a Black woman, but I am also a woman, a person. As silly as it may sound, it needs to be reaffirmed. We love the fact that the “woke” bro is interested and concerned and aware, but why is he shocked when I know less than him about the Maasai’s Enkipataa ceremony?
We need the “Woke” bros to let us define our Blackness.
***
So, this is my readiness guide for Black women who are considering the swirl. You might think: “Why would you be willing to go through all this trouble, live through these cringey situations, when you could be with a Black man—someone of your own race, someone with whom you don’t even have to have these tough discussions?”
Ultimately, we are all looking for love, in all of its shapes and all forms. I love my Black men, I love my white men, and I can love anybody that’s going to accept me for who I am, and the teachings I can bring to the table — I just need to be ready for what our differences may entail.
I have met someone whom I like, a white man. It is a casual affair, but I address this with him still. I talked to him about this article, actually. And he listened.