by Alicia Barnes of liciabobesha.com
Having a white husband isn’t always easy. Some people suspect we won’t last, or worse, they think we shouldn’t be together.
While my husband’s family has always been very supportive of us, my parents have not. My mom always made an effort to be polite, distant but polite. My father, and I’m saying this the nicest way I can, was a complete ass.
When my husband, then boyfriend, would come over to their house, my father would go sit in the backyard until he left. For years, he wouldn’t speak words to him. He’d grunt at him. He stomped on his way out. He avoided eye contact as if he believed if he were awful enough, he’d chase him away.
The more serious we got, the uglier my father became about “that boy” who he hated I lived with, who he felt was taking advantage of me, who he desperately wanted me to distrust as much as he did.
My parents, especially my father, worried. They grew up in the segregated south. My parents were 13 when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. They were 14 when their schools were desegregated and their hometown erupted into riots that left two dead. Violence wasn’t just on TV and in the history books for them. The KKK marched the streets openly. My mother distinctly remembers having a National Guard rifle pointed in her face as she tried to go to church. I can’t tell you much about what happened to my father at this time because he’s never be able to share what it was like being a young black male when people were murdered to stop people who looked like us from simply going to school.
Though many years had passed, in my father’s mind when it came to his little girl, it was still us and them. No, my parents were not happy with my white boyfriend, and I can’t blame them. Their early lives were defined by separateness that purported they were less than. They worked very hard to provide me with opportunities they never had and were terrified I’d end up abandoned and homeless because we were living in a house owned by my husband’s parents.
“He could put you out, and there’d be nothing you could do,” my dad said. “They aren’t going to care about you like they care about their own.”
He wanted me to leave, to make my own life. He spoke out of fear. He never said he wanted me to have a black husband. He wanted me to be on my own and have my own things, so I’d be secure and not dependent upon any man. While he provided for his family, my father knew too many men who had not, his own father included. All he could see were all the bad things that could happen, and with an interracial relationship, the list was long.
Fear was controlling my father to the point I had to distance myself from him. He couldn’t speak cordially. My mother was still trying to get to know my husband as a person, but my father seemed bent on breaking my engagement. I prepared myself for him not to show at the wedding, but he did, though he was sullen and withdrawn. He needed time and space, so I lived my own life, aware he might never choose to be part of it.
Then about a year after we had been married, about 8 years into our relationship, my father began to soften. He’d ask my husband questions about himself. He’d rent movies he thought we’d like to watch. Eventually in 2010, we went on vacation together. After my father finally spoke to my husband and got to know him, he saw what I had nearly a decade before: my husband was kind, warm, funny, genuine, supportive, and as loving and accepting as the family who raised him. I knew things had really changed when my phone would ring and my dad would barely let me say hello before he’d ask to talk to my husband. Seeing them together now, you’d never guess the hard years.
We were lucky that my siblings have always been supportive and that his family had always treated me as one of their own, including me in weddings, family gatherings, and holidays years before we were engaged. If we had had challenges on both sides, I don’t think we would have made it. It’s hard to build a life together surrounded by fear and negativity. Now, especially that we have a child, I’m grateful that my parents were able to move beyond their past hurt and see my husband for the man he is, not just his race.
I hope that as a mother, I always remember that parents even when they have their children’s best interests in mind can blinded by their own experiences. It took my parents too long to realize it wasn’t my husband they didn’t like, it was how they had been treated by people who looked like him. Over the years they eventually saw him as an individual and accepted that he had no more choice in his appearance than they had in theirs.
The past is important and should never be forgotten, but we should remember it cautiously. We can’t control what happened back then, but we can control is how we treat each other now.
Alicia has been known to add chia and flax seed meal to brownies, so she can eat them guilt free. Besides teaching her one-year-old son to use gentle hands with their two dogs, two rabbits, flock of chickens, and one foster cat for a friend serving in the Peace Corps, she mostly spends too much time on the internet.
This was a very touching article. I am very happy for you both and that you stood your ground and not allow your parents dictate your love and marriage with your husband. I’m sure your parents meant well but what happen in the past doesn’t mean it has to happen to you. God Bless!
I was quite angry about your father’s attitude because he wasn’t willing to sacrifice his own issues for the happiness of his daughter,his neighbours,doctor or passing friends may be white but he was laying blame on the simple color of skin,the same thing those horrid people done to him
I’m glad that you saw your husband as a good man,not what his color is and stood your ground.
Maxine,
You live in a fantasy world.
Yeah, your dad looks less than enthused in that picture :/ But he definitely gets props for showing up that day, and for coming around eventually. I’m glad you all have a more harmonious relationship now.
Love your story! Very encouraging and I’m so happy to see another interracial couple making it through adversity. People who were living during times like those have to come to a realization that the world is changing and people and cultures change. When my husband’s family and friends found out he was dating a black woman, they were all against it, but as they got to know me they found that I was the best thing that ever happened to him. We are happily married now with a 2 year old and his family loves and supports our relationship. I couldn’t ask for anything more
I love your honesty and your ability to see (and wait for) the best in people. This is a great article that will hopefully be a blessing for many people who will read it.
It doesn’t come natural to me to wait and see, but I’m learning this is the way I want to live my life.
How touching. Your Dad loves you more than you can believe. Take it from another African-American dad. And the fact he showed up at your wedding tells me he wasn’t going to miss not being able to give his little girl away. In my mind, the real hero in all this is your husband. To have waited years to win your family’s love–that’s decency and good up-bringing and extraordinary patience. He’s a man among men. You couldn’t put a price tag on that. Felicitations!
Sadly he didn’t give me away. I walked the aisle by myself.
I do agree my husband is amazing for having weathered all this with grace at an incredibly difficult time in his own life with his mother terminally ill.
Our stories are similar, except the voice of opposition was my mother (my dad died a few years earlier having given my then boyfriend his approval). The funny thing is that my mom always told me to date people who were of the same mind. People who wanted what I did. And so I did. He just happened to be white. Thank goodness his family was so accepting and treated me like one of their own. My relationship with my mother is not good (there is more to the story than my husband’s skin color) despite the fact that my husband and I have been together since 1997 and married for 10 years this past August.
It’s sad how fear can keep us from bonding and building relationships with others. Good luck to you and your family!
This was such a great article! It’s so crazy to see how fear really can paralyze people and leave them in a prison of the heart.
Much love and support to your husband! I was in a very long term interracial relationship from my teen years and one of the most hurtful things was learning, years into it, that my boyfriends’ family didn’t approve of our relationship. This was especially because they were nice and pleasant and welcoming to my face for years, so to find out they didn’t accept me for something as uncontrollable as the color of my skin felt, quite literally, like a punch in the gut. I was devastated and shed a lot of tears. The relationship eventually ended for other reasons and now I am married to a man whose family would never be so judgmental or closed minded and more importantly, who lead me to The Lord, so thank God that other relationship DIDNT work out!
With my marriage now, I was surprised to see that there were family members on MY side that came seemingly out of the wood works with their disapproval, but all the naysayers in my family have come around now to love my husband so much. In fact, the most outspoken ones then, love him the most now and are some of our biggest supporters. They love him even more than ME! Hahaha
The best thing that’s come out of this is our beautiful children. If God wasn’t accepting of marriage between races, I just can’t rationalize why He would allow our children to be so amazingly beautiful! We are ALL made in His image, despite the color of our skin and I know now the most important thing to me is the status of my soul, not my skin, before a Holy God.
Thanks so much for writing this! And many many blessings to all of you! Your perseverance lead to a mighty work in the heart of your father and that is no small thing!
I was with you until you said, “I just can’t rationalize why He would allow our children to be so amazingly beautiful.”
As a black mother to black children who wants to be part of this B&B community, I do kind of “feel a way” hearing that. Perhaps it’s my own defensiveness, I don’t know.
I know your intention is good, but I don’t like the suggestion of a “beauty hierarchy” when it comes to our children.
I didn’t say they were more beautiful than other children, but sorry if you felt I implied that. I thought the point of my piece was that we are all created in the image of God, despite our outward appearances. Sorry to convey anything other than that point.
Apologies,
Aja
Why apologize for saying your children are beautiful,just because some take it the wrong way,ignore it.
I hope I’m not mis-reading, but she spoke generally of interracial relationships:
“If God wasn’t accepting of marriage between races, I just can’t rationalize why He would allow our children to be so amazingly beautiful!”
I took that as a generalization about all interracial children. I hope I am wrong.
I love the spirit of this website and all I’m saying is that we should retain its focus on celebrating black mothers. It’s not a space to contrast and compare our children.
Thats fine,but I too believe that interracial relationships are beautiful -two races coming together,standing against opposition,
I also think black/white/Asian etc relationships are beautiful and depict the loyalty,strength and union that is shared among your own.
We are all beautiful and I hope you understand that she wasn’t trying to offend you,it doesn’t seem that way.
PS I am a black child of black parents as well, just to clarify.
“He spoke out of fear. He never said he wanted me to have a black husband. He wanted me to be on my own and have my own things, so I’d be secure and not dependent upon any man. While he provided for his family, my father knew too many men who had not, his own father included.”
This made tears fill my eyes because I could have written it myself. I believe this is one of the REAL reasons “educated black women” are often single, and no one talks about it. Our parents drilled in the “get your education, be independent” so much that it left a lot of us relationship dysfunctional. I’m sorry but it’s true. We can still do this though. I just wish people weren’t so cruel about it and tried to understand this better.
So happy for you ending in this matter—my families didn’t want to except my white husband—and some of his family as well didn’t want to except me–but as the days rolled on and the weeks slipped by–they began to see how much we cared for each other—-and we are all a blended family and respectful of each other—-love covers all—never give up—love is very powerful!
I have the same problem with my dad who won’t speak to my or my daughter (from a previous relationship to a black man) because I’m now married to a white man. My husband is British and has a hard time understanding the racial tension here in the US. We have to deal with people who don’t like our relationship but where I can brush it off he wants to face the criticism head on.
I’m sorry to hear that you suffer opposition being in a mixed relationship but isn’t it sometimes how we view things as humans,your husband could have been black and you may still have got the same treatment,people judge others for everything it could be the size of someone being fat,older,class etc,what I’m saying if you keep thinking the world is against you as a mixed couple then not only will the world view you that way,you give more power to that negativity.something is only a problem if you consider it a problem.
I’m in a mixed relationship and we never let peoples hostility undermine us because those people are a minority and do not matter.
Not feeling this nonsense. “Poor you” “Poor husband”. So pathetic. Then spends time in article detailing EXACTLY why her father felt the way he did. Oh yeah we know who the enemy here is.