Before I get started: This is just MY opinion and experience. You can ask these same questions of someone else who’s interracially married, and they may say the complete opposite. I am just ONE person. Not an interracial marriage spokesperson.
After last week’s post about “swirling” I’ve gotten some really great emails! I’m glad you guys dig the theme. So, I’m going to try to lump the Q&A into categories.
Today’s questions are a few of those I’ve received about approval and reactions of people we know:
- What did your dad say when you brought John home?
- Do your families approve of your relationship?
- Do your friends approve?
- Are you the only interracial relationship in your family / circle of friends?
First off: I don’t give a good god damn about what people have to say about my marriage.
That said….
What did your dad say when you brought John home?
He said hello. Like any other normal person does when they meet someone.
I’m not sure what people expect here, like my father is going to go on some rant about racism, the white man holding him down and injustice in America just because there happens to be a white man at the dinner table. Please note, my parents have seen white people before.
But if you want some tea, I will say this: he didn’t like John when he met him. And not because of his skin….more because he was the guy doing the horizontal naughty dance with his daughter. And, by me bringing him home to meet the family, he knew that this was a guy who was going to be sticking around for a while. Little did he know it would be for.ev.er.
The more Dad and John spoke the more they realized that they were exactly alike (which sickens me to this day) just in opposite bodies.
Do your families approve of your relationship?
If they don’t, they haven’t notified me. I have one cousin for whom my relationship was the first interracial relationship she personally knew of. She knew about John long before she met him, and a few weeks after she first met him at my parents’ house, we were talking and she said something like “Oh, I wasn’t sure about interracial relationships before, but I guess it’s just…normal.”
I’m really glad she said that, because A: I didn’t know that it was something new for her and B: it was nice to know that she realized that it’s not a “thing” like some folks want to make it out to be. I have cousins on both sides of my family that are now in interracial relationships, as well.
Do your friends approve?
I am sad to report that I have lost a friend over dating John. She starting acting funny toward me after we started dating…when it seemed serious she actually had the nerve to “have a talk” with me about it. She politely let me know that I am to marry a man of color because as a black woman in America it is my duty to continue the diaspora by bearing brown skinned children from my womb. (because my biracial son doesn’t count as part of the diaspora…..) ::blank stare::
Let me throw shade at her for a moment: Because after all her lectures about me contributing to the diaspora….this chick popped up later and said…hey, guys I’m a lesbian now….and is NOT having children of her own. And has the nerve to be dating a girl who is biracial!! So…she’s not doing a damn thing for the diaspora….as is her duty….as a black woman in America!
Speaking of shade throwing: I just have one other friend who liked to remind me every time we spoke about John how she “can’t believe I’m with him” and “he’s so not what I expected you to end up with” etc etc. Nothing overtly racial though.
That’s it, my friends don’t care about foolishness like that. And if they do, they’re great at pretending they dont.
Are you the only interracial relationship in your family / circle of friends?
Nope. My cousin is newly married to a Japanese girl and they have the most adorable lil guy Jax:
who is born just 2 months after Rohan. (Can we say best friends?!) My cousin on my dad’s side is dating a girl who’s white and I hope he proposes and has cute lil cousins for Roey to play with very soon….(if you’re reading this Co, I’m looking at YOU.) I have a few friends in real life who are in interracial relationships/marriages, and LOADS of e-friends I’ve met via blog-land who are as well.
That’s it for now. I guess I’ll make this topic a weekly thing until I make it through all the questions. Keep sending them my way. But feel free to keep the ignorance to yourself. 🙂
Quite a few people have asked for John’s point of view on things, so I will see if he’ll answer the questions and do a post or vid or something for you guys too.
For those of my readers who are also in inter-racial (and hell….inter-faith, inter-cultural, inter-whateverthehell) relationships, I’d love to know your answers to the questions above. Share in the comments. I’m curious now!
First of all, I LOVE that wedding picture. It is too cute! Secondly, its great that family and friends were receptive for the most part. I guess when people asked that question about your dad, they were picturing a scene from Guess Who with Bernie Mac or Guess who’s coming to Dinner?
It always baffles me how close minded some people can be about the situation.
LOL I should check that movie out! And thanks! I can’t wait to see YOUR WEDDING PICTURES!!! WHOOOOT WHOOOOOT!!!
This is such an awesome topic!! I’m more than willing to help out with comments and answers to the questions. Matt and I are interracial and intercultural.
– What did my dad say… nothing out of the ordinary. When things did get serious, they did talk to us about how it might be hard for us out there in the mean cold world… but they love Matt as their own son.
– How our families reacted. My side was more excited to see the biproduct of our love (aka lil A). There was one person on Matt’s side who had issues…but the funny thing was, once he got to know me those went out the window!!
– Our friends…love it! Again, they mostly just made comments like, “Your kids are going to be gorgeous”. lol Some of our friend’s parents, however, didn’t hide their hesitation towards our happiness. One such dad is getting a taste of his own medicine, because both his daughter are married/marrying men of different races. :)…”their kids are going to be sooo cute!!” lol
– In our circle of friends we’re the most obvious mix….so it seems like we’re the first. I have a lot of blogger friends that are in interracial relationships though! Family wise, we have some distant cousin/family friends that are. It’s definitely more prevalent in our generation.
Oh…and I should mention the cultural aspect. I’m first generation Ugandan-American…so all my family is overseas in Africa. I think when my parents moved here to raise their family they knew that there would be a huge chance I would marry an American…and that’s exactly what I did. 🙂 Matt is a mix of all sorts: Italian, French, Scottish, Irish…and I’m sure a sprinkle of other things. 🙂
Thanks for all the answers/honesty! Is the race or the culture the biggest difference for you/your fam?
I gotta say, the “cute kid” thing kinda annoys me. My kid is cute cuz I’m cute and my husband’s cute, not because I’m black and my husband’s white LOL
The biggest difference is actually culture. Mine emphasizes respect (especially to elders) to a degree that is unreal. lol. On the other hand, Matt grew up calling his parents by their first name. So that was a shock both ways…
And I agree… we made our kids cute because we’re both cute. 🙂
So what I love about your blog is that you keep it 100% with everything!!! And to your friend that had the problem…she had her own issues! I have lost friends over getting married and becoming a mom…and hell I married someone black like me…so she probably was going to drift off anyways!!!
And the last thing I will say is my husband was married for a couple of months…years before we got together! He told me about it when we first started dating and I didnt even believe him because I would see him EVERY Sunday in church and never knew he had been married! He said he was telling me early because he didnt want anyone else to tell me…because church folks talk more than non-churchy people! He was married to a white lady…so when everyone at church found out we were dating this lady says…I guess since he couldn’t keep the “white one he had” he got the next closest thing…meaning me since Im light skinned! Thinking back I should’ve said some ignorant things back but I didnt!! I said all that to say people have something to say no matter what you are doing…you are John are happy so I agree-NO ONE ELSE MATTERS!!!
LOL @ Church People talking smack! I am glad you didn’t verbally slap those folks who came at you about your husband’s ex. I hope you post on your blog about losing friends to marriage/motherhood. I have been meaning to write on that myself. I’d love to hear your experience.
To each her own but i have to say you seem to be harboring some anger for someone who doesn’t care what people think of your interracial marriage. It sounds like you haven’t had that much animosity from friends and family so why the angry tone in your post? Throwing shade on your cousin was kinda petty especially since she PROBABLY was having a hard time coming out and your relationship may have actually helped her in accepting herself and not living up to that standard she first mentioned to you.
Being with your husband in a successful marriage is all the shade you gotta throw at folks who don’t agree with interracial dating. I personally would only marry a black man but that’s me. To me there is no greater love than black love, but again that’s me. There will be friends and family members who have problems with a mate for numerous reasons and many will have nothing to do with race. I’m just saying you seem angry. If so….let it go. What you do is your business and just realize that no one is going to walk in your shoes for you so they really shouldn’t tell you who to marry.
This post sounded angry to you? ::shrug:: This is the tone of my entire blog.
If you re-read you’ll see that I didn’t throw shade at my cousin, and was happy she said what she said to me.
I threw shade at the “friend” I lost.
Sorry for saying it was your cousin but my response stays the same. Petty for throwing shade on her because she may have needed your experience to share who she is to the world. It may have been extremely hard for her to do that and you may have helped her without even knowing it. Who knows? Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t but I’d like to think that some people are so afraid of stepping outside of their norm that they attack others when they really wish they had the strength to do it on their own. Highlighting her sexual preferences on a forum like this just reinforces how too many people concentrate on one’s sexual preference when it really shouldn’t matter. I get your point…I really do. She shouldn’t have told you what your duty was as a black woman, but if she truly felt that way just imagine how hard it was for her to NOT follow down that path.
I think you’re right about people attacking others when they fear whatever it is about themselves. Reminds me of those closeted people who are gay bashing. This blog post isn’t about my ex-friends internal struggles, and I couldn’t care less about them at this point. You’re entitled to your opinion, and can call me petty if you’d like, but I will throw shade wherever I desire on my blog. ::pulls down the curtain::
I agree. I dont think you sounded angry. I think people think cursing = angry. I think cursing = cursing.
I think it may have just been projection.
As much as I curse? No way. The tone, not the cursing was what I was talking about.
Not sure if you’re a regular blog reader since this post was the first you commented on, but if you look back at other posts you’ll note the tone is the same. I notice that I read other people’s words with my “voice” and if I’m pissed, I’ll read other people’s words in my nasty tone.
I’ve commented on some of your posts especially when you were discussing breastfeeding. Some other ones too but I can’t remember those as much. I’m not pissed about anything. It’s a difference of opinion. Isn’t that OK?
I welcome and appreciate differences of opinion when brought up in a normal, snark free, personal bias free manner. The “isn’t that OK” wasn’t necessary and lends a tone to your comment that lets me know you’re not having a simple back and forth conversation. So I’ll leave this alone now. Have a great one.
I may have used another name. I’ve recently stopped putting my whole name or it could be I was using my google profile in earlier posts.
Oh that explains why I had to approve your first comment. It looks like you’re a first time commenter on this end.
OK, now you must be misreading my tone. I wasn’t trying to be snarky by asking “isn’t that OK?” I should have worded it differently but I honestly was asking a question. Is appeared I misread your intent and you misread my intent but that can happen in the written word especially since I’ve offended you (sorry, if that is not how you would call it) and you may be looking for some attitude from me. Truly, no attitude is trying to seep out of the words in this post. You have a good one too and I hope this is just a misunderstand between two women who don’t see eye to eye on a particular topic.
Love this post!!! I am interracially married. I had one cousin who stepped out of pocket with me about dating my now husband. Mind you we are a mixed race family. But she always wanted to throw how her BLACK husband this or BLACK husband that. I was like chil’ please. I don’t care what skin color a man has. As long as he treats a woman with respect and treats her like a Queen more power to you. I have a 9 month son with my new husband and two children from a previous marriage who are not mixed. The remarks I get about all three are unbelieveable. Like my 9 month old is so beautiful and “oh the other ones are cute as well.” My mother is Black and my father is Cuban. My father was just happy that a man came along to take me off his hands lol. He likes Rob and commends him for being able to handle me and my many attitudes lol. My mom likes him as well. And like you Dani I don’t give a flying F*ck if no one approves. It’s my heart, my soul, my life not yours.
A: I love the term “out of pocket” LOL
B: People are retarded.
C: People are also obsessed with mixed race kids as if it’s the magical recipe for a cute kid.
I’m black (well, mostly), and my husband is white. My family has been intermarrying for generations (literally—the earliest interracial relationship in my family that I can confirm was Civil War era) and so they weren’t phased at all by it. In fact, it’s fairly common for us to joke about; even my grandmother likes to get us matching white chocolate and dark chocolate bunnies for Easter.
My husband’s family is from a small, rural area. Most of them were a bit surprised, but were very welcoming. One was not, for a long time, and even refused to come to the wedding until the matriarch of the family put her foot down and told him to get over it. He and I have since become friendly, which is nice.
Crazy how far back your fam can be traced. Did your husband say anything to the person that was not welcoming?
Not particularly. When the person threatened not to come to the wedding, he just said, well that’s too bad.
Good!! I’m glad he’s come around though.
I find the “swirl” thing just kind of bizarre. I have a friend/acquaintance who was creeping me out after finding out that my wife was black. He wanted to see pictures of her and I guess really objectifies women as many men and women do. My wife is not an object. And no i didnt show him pictures. This guy is my age. Im 35. The awesome part is he told me he loves to sleep with black women but wouldnt marry one. Okeydokey buddy. He’s a minority himself. Which I expect better from minorities and their ignorance but I suppose I shouldn’t. I know forming groups and connections is a natural thing for us humans but we should be able to realize when it makes sense and when the groups or divisions are just illogical. As a minority I would expect him to realize “hey, i’ve seen prejudice. its fucked up and not cool, let me not do it.” but unfortunately that is really not the case.
What did your dad say when you brought Danielle home? Just the usual. Tease me like we’re both in 6th grade.
Do your families approve of your relationship? Most of them I would imagine. My immediate family is just happy when I’m happy. I have some that I dont speak to much that are probably mortified I’ve married outside of our race.
Do your friends approve? the ones that matter do. Again if any of them disapprove not only could they go f*ck themselves but I dont care what they think.
Are you the only interracial relationship in your family / circle of friends? No. Its pretty common here in the NY metro area thank god.
This is the future. Welcome to the year 2000. I hate to sound like sesame street but what matters is on the inside. Given enough time we will all consider one another, regardless of skin color, ethnic background, and so on, one race of people. At a maximum any two individuals, no matter where they come from or what color they are have only a 0.1% difference genetically. So any differences we may see as major are actually very minor. Its about time we realize that the idea of race might be real. I have peach skin, that guy has brown skin, are there any real tangible differences that makes one worse or better than the other that are directly tied to race? None that I know of. That way of thinking is primitive and its about time its dealt with. I understand black people aren’t lazy and not all hispanics carry knives and not all irish people drink. actually i think the last one is true but i digress.
I dont love danielle because she has brown skin, although I love her brown skin. I fell in love with her and still love her because of her mind. She is my intellectual counterpart. I’ve never been one to follow the crowd. It usually rubs me the wrong way. This is one of those times.
After dating black men for years I decided to give this white guy a chance at going on a date, he’d only been asking for around 8 months! Needless to say we have been together every day since I we just celebrated our second wedding anniversary last month. I was raised in Puerto Rico were racial issues (although there) are not a big issue anymore since we’ve been one big blended race/ethnic group.
Everyone in my family was happy with him although I was more concerned about his family (they’re from way down south). His family loved me from day 1 and although a few of his extended cousins still want to share “race jokes” somehow they like me. In the end I chalk it up to ignorance, some of those same cousins have left the state where they live in so they have no clue live is pretty normal in other parts of the US.
My husband loves my brown skin, my inability to pronounce certain words in English, my family and my little Island. All in all, I am glad I gave love a chance and was able to look outside of color lines. I wish more people would do it as well, maybe we wouldn’t have so many single females waiting on the perfect “black” husband….just sayin’
I wish I could spell some days…
I love that you were open to dating him, imagine what you’d have missed out on if you had kept saying no!
I know right! Silly me…
I’m sorry I’m not talking about the interracial thing as I couldn’t care less really, (I’ve got friends that do it so I’m used to it) but I just had to say Jax is the cuties thing everrrrr!!!! Not to sound vain or anything but I think offspring from interracial couples are the cutest baby ever too!! 😀
That is legitimately the cutest baby I have ever seen.
Isn’t he a doll!!!?? I can’t wait to snuggle him. My cousin and his wife did a good job!! 🙂
Hi Dani, Thanks for posting this! I’ll definitely be posting something similar and linking back. The boyfriend might even do a “his response” thing too! Well, on to the questions –
What did your dad say when you brought A home
I’m not sure what the first words were, but it might have been something to the effect of “Hi!” Lol. I had been talking him up for a while, so they knew exactly what to expect when they met him. My parents have always told me that they don’t care who I marry as long as I’m happy, so as soon as they saw my smile, they were just too excited to meet him.
Do your families approve of your relationship?
I think they more than approve. To the point where we feel like their getting antsy that we aren’t getting married soon enough, lol. It’s a blessing though, one that I’m thankful for everyday.
Do your friends approve?
Yes, but they approve because he’s wonderful and not necessarily because they are they are in “support” of interracial relationships. I think if someone ever said that to me, I would probably have to walk away from them, lol.
Are you the only interracial relationship in your family / circle of friends?
Family – no and friends – no. It is definitely more common with my friends (and every type of interracial/inter-ethnic combination under the sun!), but it is becoming even more common with my family.
Again, great post Dani!
Haha, I love your tone, doesn’t sound angry to me.
What did your dad say: Nothing much coz my mom was doing all the talking. No actually, screaming, shouting and crying…lol. My dad, being the only man in a house of seriously opinonated woman (mom, sister and I), decided not to put in his veiws until after 8months of my mom not speaking to me in an attempt to “mend” his broken family. He told me he didn’t care weather i was lesbian or chose to be with someone of another race, just as long as he( or she, had that been the case) loves u, treats u good and makes u happy. My mom eventually came round.
Do family approve: My aunt (whom I love ever so dearly) told my mom in law that she was so worried when she found out and she went on to say “but look at her, I’ve never seen her so happy”. I’d like to believe thats how the rest of my family feels, if not, Im greatful for them not sharing this with me, because I still love them all.
Do friends approve: Yes. and thats all 🙂
Am I the only one in an interacial and intercultural rship in my family and amoungst my close friend: not amoungst my friends, but in my family (a huge one at that, I have just over 30 first cousins whom I am very close to) yup (Im labelled the rebel child…for many other really random reasons)
Wow! Your mom went hard! I’m glad she came around. Did you know her feelings on interracial dating before you and your man got together? I’m glad you’re the rebel child, and sidebar: i like your blog so far.
I father died the weekend he was to meet my then boyfriend now husband for the first time. I’d told my dad about him and that he wasn’t black. My dad looked at me said, “ok” and we continued with other topics of conversation. No big deal.
The majority of my family met my husband at my dad’s funeral. No one has ever said anything about him to my face. In the beginning, I heard about a few rumblings from a couple of family members, but nothing overtly insensitive and nothing said directly to me.
When my husband’s sisters first met me they were “amazed” that “I was nothing like the black girls they saw on the train… and how intelligent I was.” His mother expressed concerned for our unborn and not even thought about children and how they would be treated in school. *This from a woman who is Italian/Irish and had three kids with a Puerto Rican man!* His step-mom, who is Ukrainian, had a black god-mother and thought that made her the expert on all black women! So, needless to say, it was a rocky start with them.
My friends are supportive. If they have issues, they’ve never made them known to me.
We are the only interracial couple in our circle of friends an immediate family.
Great posts. But the premise behind the swirling is giving me a headache.
@sabrina,no greater love than Black love? Get over yourself honey. That in itself is ignorant and myopic. BTW I am as black as they come.
Just wanted to say that your husband is an absolute hunk. That is all!