A relationship that's viewed in black and white
by Ellen Mallernee
Last summer, my mom and I encountered a black man and his white wife, holding the chubby hands of the two-year-old who tottered between them. We stopped them under the pretense of cooing over their beautiful daughter. Truly though, I wanted to ask them, however inappropriate it may have been, how it had been for them.
Had they suffered obvious discrimination because of their unconventional choice? Did they worry that their daughter would grow to feel confused about her broad nose, her gray eyes, and her toffee-colored skin? These questions caught in my throat as my mom knelt before the toddler to get a better look at what her granddaughter might one day look like.
As a teenager, my father had me promise him that I would never date a black man—an idea that horrified and disgusted him. That, he said, was the one thing I could do to permanently unravel his bonds with me. I reassured him quickly that he need not be concerned. That was one of his silly promises I didn't feel uncomfortable making. "You don't have to worry about that," I said. "I'm not attracted to black guys."
At fifteen, I didn't realize that it isn't the color of a person's skin that draws me—it's his wit, his intelligence, his kindness, his propensity for love. Over a year ago I began working at a local deli, and seemingly overnight I fell in love with a fellow employee. He is an African American—tall, handsome, and of course, dark. He won me over with his wide smile, his mischievous sense of humor, and his long list of ambitions.
Regardless of the unexpected turn my heart had taken, I grew up around a holiday table where my father's family passed the "N" word as often as the rolls. Though I was raised by a liberated and accepting mom, my father was irate about the color of my new boyfriend's skin. He immediately cut me off emotionally and financially. By the time Christmas rolled around, my father and I had made our meager amends, and I went home to Nashville to find myself around that same family table. My cousins were open and excited for me, but my aunt slipped out of the room coldly when I mentioned my boyfriend, and I felt fury roar inside me that my beloved boyfriend was now considered an under-the-table topic.
Even after we half-heartedly made amends, my father's voice was always rimmed with bitterness, and because we had made an agreement not to talk about my boyfriend, I resented that there was a whole section of my life I couldn't share with him. My father told me over the phone that I am immoral and disgusting. "You are heading for a train wreck," he says over and over with a conviction
that is disturbing. I tried to understand where he's coming from, but I invariably failed. When he said ugly, preposterous things to me, I felt that I was edging closer to some sort of end.
How can I persevere in a relationship that is so thick with tension and hate, I thought. And how can I not? He is, after all, my father. But one day several months ago, apparently after brewing it over for many hours, he called me up and screamed at me that he would no longer give me a penny for school if I continued dating a black guy. I hung up on him immediately. My loyalties are ultimately to my boyfriend, who I realize has been holding on to a thread of hope, believing that my father's initial reaction to us would fade. But it hasn't diminished.
Still, there is an authentic innocence inside me that hopes one day my father might be able to take a deeper look, to treat his son-in-law with respect, and to hold his grandchildren without reserve.
All in all, being in an interracial relationship is not as difficult as I would have imagined. None of the problems in our relationship stem from our racial differences—with the exception being my father's racism and my boyfriend's hunger for his approval.
My boyfriend and I sometimes encounter abrasive stares, but with time, I've come to realize that more of them are imagined than real. It's my friends' smallest implications that stagger me the most. After months of confiding in my best friend from high school, she mentioned to me that she'd told our hometown friends about my new "black boyfriend."
Similarly my mom found that word had spread quickly among our acquaintances about my boyfriend, specifically about his color. Now I am better able to understand that most everyone sees only what their experience allows them to see. And so, over time I've lost much of my sensitivity to these vague prejudices. Perhaps, just perhaps, the two of us can educate others just by being ourselves. Already some of my peers, and my elders too, have approached me to say that I've altered their way of thinking. But I don't presume to change the world with my relationship.
I've learned from my boyfriend that there's nothing much he or I can do about the way people feel. We might as well laugh it up. And, I think, when the sight of us does disturb some stuck-in-the-fifties onlooker, the rebellious spark in me winks at that. Just by being myself, in my life, I'm poking my tongue out at convention, and I think that's kinda cool, really.
I'm just hoping someone has already designed interracial plastic figures for the top of my wedding cake.
September 18, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 38
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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