Racism in the 21st Century

It is the 21st century. America has elected its first black, actually mixed race, President. Lewis Hamilton holds the Formula One championship. There are numerous other examples of successful black and mixed race men and women. Surely Western civilisation, such as the UK where I now live and my native USA, has moved beyond their histories of racism and discrimination. Unfortunately, my experience as a white woman married to a black man and the mother of a mixed race child reflects a reality that remains far from perfect.

First of all, lest my readers believe that I am angry or feel no progress has been made, let me place my experiences within context. In the last quarter of a century since my first crush on my black best friend in high school, the world and even my family have seen tremendous progress towards addressing the issue of prejudice and discrimination. While I will not say I enjoy taking my black husband and mixed race child home to visit my family in the Deep South, I will say the experience was far less traumatic than I feared it would be.

Our neighbourhood, where we live in north London and where my husband was born and raised, is an enclave of blended families. Of his black friends from school and work, four of the six are married to or in relationships with white women. Our neighbours represent the most integrated and multi-cultural family I know; the mother re-married Asian (Middle Eastern for those readers in the US) while both her daughters have married Afro-Caribbean and the son is dating an Oriental (Asian in US). So in our little corner of the world, my daughter with her light brown skin, dark eyes and long curls is actually the norm.

This essay is about what happens when we leave the safety of our cocooned world of family and friends in north London. It is about the silent prejudice, misunderstanding and racism we have and continue to face; even in a multi-cultural and global society. One of the first things that anyone, who dates or marries a black man, quickly learns is that if there is guilt by association, there is also racism by association. Compounding this problem for a white woman though is the fact that she longer fits in either world. She was not born black, has not been raised with the sometimes daily experience of racism, and is not benefited by being part of the larger black community.

It is one thing to be aware of our countries and their histories of racism; it is another the first time that it happens to you. For those of us, who have mixed race children, our experience is further complicated by our joys and fears for them. This essay explores my personal experiences across race and cultural divides in both the US and UK. It is by no means comprehensive and as with most of my work its purpose is not to provide answers, but to raise questions; tough questions.

I lived in Los Angeles when I first began to experiment with this fetish of mine. Now as a child and teen growing up in a small Southern city, LA had always seemed this accepting, wild and almost hedonistic city. This opinion of course was taken from and intensified by television shows such as LA Law. So when I divorced after fourteen years of marriage, I saw it as the ultimate utopia. In many ways, this idealised city of my youth was everything I had hoped. My sexual experience and confidence grew exponentially during my seven years there. Yet when I began to date African-American men several years after my divorce and move to the area, my golden city soon took on a more tarnished view. One experience illustrated this disillusionment well.

I met many of my lovers the modern way; on-line. My usual pattern was to meet for the first time for coffee; most likely Starbucks. On this occasion, we decided to meet at my local Starbucks in East LA. My date was spectacular; just my type, stocky, very dark, broad nose and full lips. We were definitely hitting it off and making plans for more over coffee. Then I noticed this man a few tables over; he was staring at us. I mean rudely staring; his eyes never once left us for the five minutes or so that I observed him. I am not the most laid-back person; I have a very strong sense of justice and fairness. Despite over forty years of continually being disappointed with injustice and unfairness, I continue to face it directly and bluntly.

This time was no exception. I first confirmed my suspicion by asking my date if he had noticed the man. He said he had been staring at him for the past half an hour; far longer than I had thought. I simply could not stop myself; I walked over to the where the man sat. I think he was both surprised and more than a bit frightened; after all my date was over six foot four and two-hundred fifty pounds. I tried to look him straight in the eye, but of course as with any cowardly act, now he looked away. I said loud enough for the whole café to hear, 'Have you never seen a black man with a white woman? We charge to watch the real show.' I then walked proudly back to my new friend; held out my hand, which he took in his larger, darker one; and we walked out together. But from that moment, the LA of my dreams was never quite the same.

I must say that in my idealism I placed a similar golden halo about London. When I first visited my husband's family here before we were married, I was amazed that no matter where we went no one seemed to even notice that we were a mixed race couple. The streets it seemed were filled with others just like us; black men with white women and even black women with white men, a less common sight in the US still. You would have thought that my earlier experience would have taught me; that I would look beneath the surface for a deeper reality, but I suppose as an idealist I shall always be looking for my utopia; a world of fairness and justice.

We had been living in London over six months when it happened. I was training to be a peer supporter to other mothers. As was reflective of the multi-cultural neighbourhood in which we lived, our leader training class was diverse; an Afro-Caribbean woman, an Asian woman, three white women with mixed race daughters and three other upper-middle class white mothers, some would call them 'posh' or yummy mummy's. During the twelve weeks of training, our class would include many small group activities that allowed us to get to know one another fairly well. We were I thought all becoming friends, until that Friday morning about two-thirds of the way through the training.

The children's centre, where our morning classes were held, featured a café that served both hot and cold lunches that were reasonably priced. This Friday we decided to enjoy the luxury of a lunch there. We ordered our food when I noticed that the three 'posh' mums from our class were sitting together at a table. I take my beautiful mixed race daughter to sit with them, but they politely but firmly informed me that there was not room for us. I was shocked and more than a tad hurt as I took my daughter off to sit elsewhere. Then I noticed that another of the mums of a mixed race child was eating alone with her child as well.

I realised then that while those mothers would be cordial to us in the classroom, they were not interested in socialising with us outside of that enclave. I have spent many hours and days thinking about the situation, because in the UK I have discovered it is not simply a matter of race. The situation is complicated by classism as well. For an American, this concept is perhaps even harder to understand. To this day, I am not certain if it is the colour of my husband's black hands or the working class calluses upon them, which make his wife and child unacceptable to those women. What I do know is that I have once again lost something very precious; my utopia.

I do not want the reader to get the mistaken impression. This article is not entitled 'The High Cost of Loving a Black Man.' I have come to accept that most things in this life have a cost to them; pains to offset the pleasures. So too is it with interracial marriages, but is the price too high? I do not think so. The support and daily encouragement I receive from my loving husband is more than worth a few misguided remarks. So why then even write this article? I think my primary motivation is seeking that utopia still. As this new dawn appears if you will, heralded by the Barack Obama's and Lewis Hamilton's of the world, I yearn desperately for a different reality for my mixed race child.

The only way though to bring about that reality is to as I did that afternoon in Starbucks; stand up and challenge racism and classism. If the saying that 'the pen is mightier than the sword' were once true, then it is my hope that in this new cyber world the keyboard shall prove mightier still. I recognise my limits of course; there are some people, whose opinions I have no hope of changing. I have received enough misspelled and poorly punctuated hate emails here to realise that as my husband said some people are simply too ignorant to go any deeper than the colour of someone's skin. I know too that at this point my writing skills may perhaps be insufficient for this mighty war, but I hope to improve and hone my craft.

Guiding all of my efforts is the over-arching belief that most people are good. In some ways that is hardest of all; the knowledge that those women in my class are wonderful if flawed people; it is them to whom I write, meekly hoping with my words to reach and change their intelligent and more open minds. Perhaps even more importantly it is their sons and daughters, who will along with my beautiful mixed race daughter, will inherit this world. I like Dr King and million of other women like me, who have discovered true love and fulfilment across lines of race and class, dream of a time when we and our 'little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.'