Just curious. Usually my friends in interracial relationship have some wild fucking stories.
I know the dynamics are different, but I'm in reverse situation. White guy, brown wife.
One thing that I really didn't think hard enough about was when my mom told me she was "sad that her grandchildren wouldn't look like [her]" and I sorta blanked it out at the time because it was so fucked up. My wife definitely gets treated worse by my mother for internalized racism reasons among others. My mom is a big CNN lib and always pulls the "i have black friends/work with black people" card whenever I call her on saying something racist.
Ironically my total fox news addicted grandfather LOVES my wife. Partly i think because she reminds him a lot of my late grandmother in her personality. They got along the moment they met and he's treated her like she's part of the family since. He once tried to pull the "there's no more racism anymore" thing and I told him about some racist things that happened to my wife and he immediately paused and contemplated what he said and admitted to being wrong.
On my wifes side of the family, interracial marriages are super normal just due to the dynamics of the country and everyone is mixed 5 ways anyway.
I (white dude) dated a black woman for a while about 10 years ago. For a while I didn't notice anything as we shared the same group of friends and it was chill. It wasn't until we got closer and started going out in public together by ourselves that it was really hammered home.
Typically what would happen is a white person would try to pull me aside, or a black person her, and "politely" (I'm using this sarcastically) try to tell us what we were doing wasn't right or some other even less polite racist nonsense. The first time it happened I about lost my mind, and she just pulled me out of the situation and just hit me with a
face. After a few rounds of that anytime anyone randomly came up to me and said "hey can I talk to you for a sec" I would just give them a "FUCK OFF" or we'd both just laugh in their face and walk away.
God that sounds so tiring. We thankfully haven't experienced any of that but there is a weird tension around a certain group of men who see her as their race even though they're way off. Not trying to get too specific though.
That's an awesome twist of events with your grandpa and unfortunate that your mom doesn't recognize her latent racism.
But yeah I think when it's a white dude dating a brown woman, things are different somewhat? It's a bit more accepted?
Like I don't know your grandpa, but for most reactionaries its a totally different story if it's their daughter or granddaughter dating a brown or black dude.
I'm sure you get where I'm coming from
Yeah I absolutely understand what you were aiming at here.
So much of American racism is some weird sexual pathology with their daughters.
Fortunately, I had no issues with racism. HOWEVER, I did have a classist mom yelling at me because I went with my ex to a place using public transportation(a bus drive basically).
Jesus christ lol.
Why do like bougie type people arbhor any sort of public faculty? There was some upper middle class boomers in my area complaining that someone put up one of those 'little free librarys' in their neighborhood.
It is just the classic hate against the least fortunate. Malthusian type of hate where they abhor being associated with anything that smell poverty. It was hell for me talking to the mother of my ex due to that. You can probably imagine how utterly depressive those conversations might be.
So basically the boomers complaining about the little free library 🙄 saying that it would "bring too much traffic"
Really just didn't want to be associated with something they think is for poor people?
Whenever I would tell my stepmother that I have feelings for a woman, the very first question she would ask me is "Is she white?" There is a lot of frustrating concern of people needlessly emphasizing race in relationships.
Am I aware that interracial relationships can have problematic implications such as internalized racism and fetishism? Of course! But in every instance that I've been into or with someone who is a different race as me, that never really crossed my mind. I kinda just like 'em no matter what, y'know?
I'm chatting it up with a white woman now, but I know that this frustrating interracial discourse is usually very cisheteronormative anyway. People will have a lot more concern with me being transfeminine than they would have for me dating someone of a different race at the end of the day.
Interesting I'm half white, half native american myself. 'White adjacent" or whatever. My grandma I think had some internalized racism going on because she wanted my mom and all her daughters to date white men. She told me once in a very racially changed conversation "I told all my daughters you date white white white!'
It could be she just wanted her future grand children to have an easier life without dealing with as much bigoted bullshit as she did as well. As we all know the closer you are to being 'waspy" the easier your life is in the US unfortunately.
Was that kind of your stepmom's thinking as well?
She specifically wanted me to date black women and have kids with one because she didn't want "mixed grandchildren." The odd thing is that I'm not having kids, and she, along with many of my other family members, have been cut out of my life entirely by now due to their transphobia specifically.
So kind of opposite of what my grandma wanted. She wanted her grandchildren 'mixed with white' because she believed it would make life easier us living in the US.
And I suppose it has' especially since I have an 'anglo' full name.
It just sucks we are still stuck in a place where the closer you are to being white and straight and cis, the easier your life gets.
I never had issues with racist family, luckily enough.
Just internal issues. I feel like, with the exception of one partner, I can't give White women I dated the anti-racist pass. They always reveal a lack of understanding or solidarity in some form or another, just a matter of time. Then that leads to internal issues between us depending on how major it is or how patient I'm feeling.
The one White girlfriend who was cool though was my longest partner, we went 7 years and not one racist incident. Actually she's called me out on my mistakes. Haha