There is a balancing act that is unseen when you are a white woman married to a black man and have raised a black son. It has never been easy on my husband nor my son and though I’ve had a front row seat to the injustices they have faced, I myself cannot know what it feels like, on a day to day basis, what it feels like to be black in America.
I will tell you that it is difficult to feel that I must defend what I say to some of my white friends, tiring really. Well meaning “friends” that say things like “Oh you talk like that because your husband is black” or “your husband is so well spoken”. Really?! I speak the way I speak because that is the way I speak. My husband was an English major and yes, he is very well spoken, but what does that have to do with the color of his skin?
With the recent murders that were widely viewed, I still must have discussions with some of my white friends on the meaning behind these deaths – murders. Like I am some kind of expert. Or I will get counseled about what I should or should not say. I will hear shock in their voice when I say that what they just said is racist. Or have to explain that white privilege has nothing to do with the amount of money in your bank account or that you were raised in a lower middle class or poor family (so was I). White privilege in its basic form is having a 400-year head start and is used to keep those of color “in their place”.
It saddens me that both my husband and my son have been judged just because of the color of their skin. My son whom is a “gentle giant” and respectful to all at all times, especially the police (we had “the talk” with him when he was quite young). He was pulled over, cuffed and thrown onto the curb by two police officers because “he didn’t look like he belonged in that neighborhood”. They ransacked his car and then when they were done, they told him to clean up the mess and “get out of here”. My son was leaving college after an exam. My husband was thrown to the ground and a knee was placed on his neck while the officers ran his driver’s license because “he fit the description of a suspect”. The only matching attribute was that he was black. My husband is 6’6”. The suspect was listed as 5’11”. I could go on and on about the encounters they have had, and we have had as a family, but I am told over and over, “it’s better now”. Is it?
My son, I am sad to say, was rocked to his very core when while he was having a discussion with a leader in our former church, someone he looked up to, said to him, “well you are one of the good ones”. They were discussing Trayvon Martin. This church leader said that Trayvon should not have been wearing a hoodie and my son countered him with “it is just a hoodie, I wear them”. That is when he was told, “well you are one of the good ones”. Good ones? What does that mean? My son left that church soon after that. That is the definition of white privilege. Saying, “You are one of the good ones” implies that if you have dark skin you should not wear certain clothing. Or when someone says to my husband that he speaks well. That implies that as a race, most do not. Or when someone says to me, why didn’t you tell me your husband is black. Ask yourself this -if you are white and your spouse is white do you, within your description, say that he/she is white? Of course not, you describe hair color, eye color, height, etc.
I have adopted my motto, it keeps me from wanting to lash out at some of the insensitive remarks from those people that just don’t get that what they are saying is so racist. I say, “If you don’t live it, you don’t know”. Well with all the ugliness of the past many months I have added to my motto. “If you don’t live it, you don’t know. But if you don’t care to learn then you are part of the problem”.
For us, as a family, we rely on our faith and our walk with the Lord. We taught our son that before he is biracial, white or black, he is a child of God and that makes him royalty. I can only hope that more and more people would look at the color of someone’s skin and then within their own heart and just see a child of God. That has been my daily prayer.