Leo Adam Biga's My Inside Stories

On Being Human: Choosing Interracial

©by Leo Adam Biga

As one half of an interracial couple living in the racialized America of the Black Lives Matter movement and the presidential election, more than a few thoughts find expression here.

What does it mean to be in an interracial relationship in 2016 America?

What extra responsibilities or burdens, if any. does this reality carry?

Is our being together a political statement in and of itself?

How are we perceived by whites and blacks? Does it really matter to people?

As a couple, do we-should we care what people think about us in this way?

Is there a natural kinship or fraternity between black-white couples?

Have there been real-life awkward Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? or Something New or Guess Who? moments to our yoking? If so, how did we handle them?

If you find yourself in an interracial relationship, how have you handled these things?

Call us what you will:
Halfies
Mixed
Biracial
Blended

She’s black. I’m white.

But what do our skin colors actually say about us as a pair, as a union – about our couple-hood?

Why might some view us as traitors to our own kind for having “gone to the other side”?

Did she and I purposely, intentionally go looking for this combo?
Are we fetishizing being with someone from another race?

Or, at the end of the day, are we simply two people who found each other and fell in love and one just happened to be black and the other white?

Is it ever that simple when it comes to race in this country?
What are your experiences and thoughts regarding this?

How might we have invited trouble by getting together?
What price have we paid, if any, for our choice in partners?
Have we lost friends, have we alienated family?
How does race come up in our relationship as an issue or topic?
How might our opposite identifications sometimes create tension or misunderstanding? How has it worked out for you?

How can we possibly be defined by our skin color when we are the collection of a lifetime of experiences, even though those experiences come through the prism of our race?

How can we ever get beyond the words, the symbols, the cultural taboos and the historical-psychic weights that attach to being black and white in America?

If you’re not down with the whole interracial thing, why does it bother you? What does it threaten that you hold dear?

How do these questions and concerns take on added steam with Trump in office?

Are she and I modern day pioneers pushing the shaded boundaries of love? Or is this so routine now that it’s no big deal?
Unless maybe it happens to you or to a loved one, huh?

Where do black-white couples fit within the context of Black Lives Matter? What is our role in the growing multicultural scheme of things? Is this about to be a cold season for interracial couples, biracial children and multicultural families or will we help lead the way to this nation’s racial healing?

As you can see, this post isn’t about answers, it’s about questions – questions that only she and I can answer for ourselves and questions that only you as readers and observers can answer for yourselves.

Besides, the knowing is in the asking.