Since 2020, interracial couples like me and my husband have lived through some of the modern era’s most explosive events of the racial and social justice movements. The lynching of Ahmad Arbery and murder Geroge Floyd. Christian nationalists marching in the ink black night with tiki torches reminiscent of burning crosses planted on Black folks’ lawns. My white husband has become more conscious of his white privilege and its trappings. His Black wife has learned the reality of Klan members who have been hiding in plain sight—from neighbors to legislators—feeling empowered to remove their hoods and come out of the shadows. 

Together we have wrestled with fear for safety, anxiety not knowing which skinfolk are kinfolk, acceptance from a world in which hate is more normalized, and how to rely on each other through it all. Alone, I have grappled with protecting my sense of Black self, pride, and identity.

How I protect my Black identity in an interracial marriage

The look. We all know “the look.” If you’re Black (or another person of color), and you have ever been with someone you’re not “supposed” to be with or in a space you don’t “belong” in you know what I am talking about. You know when you’re being surveilled in a high-end store by that ever-present white employee wanting to help you.

There are so many examples. But the ones I am most intimately familiar with (and hurt by) have been with my now-husband. 

As Black women, I am a double minority judged more harshly for both my race and gender under normal circumstances. So that random Black man’s side glance on the street that says, “Sis...him??” is sadly not surprising.  

My personal favorite: TSA at the airport. We both walk up to the counter to have our IDs checked. 

“Sir, step back.” 

“That’s my wife.”

… A 45-week (😂) pregnant pause followed by a forced smile as he or she (equal opportunity bias here) rushes us through. I can’t always tell if it’s more from embarrassment, or disgust. Even in 2026, much of the world still doesn’t know what to do with us, or is caught off guard by our coupling. 

Falling in love with him was one of the easiest things I’ve ever done. Protecting that relationship from the world has been the hardest. 

In 2022, I was on Slate’s podcast “How To.” Three Black women, including myself, married to white men discussed the nuances of that lived experience. “Am I allowed to do this? Is this the right thing? Am I a traitor to the race? Am I doing something that is jeopardizing the culture that I love? I mean, it doesn’t make me any less African American, any less of a black woman. I’m very proud of that identity,” said Karyn Langhorne Folan, author of Don’t Bring Home a White Boy: And Other Notions that Keep Black Women From Dating Out.

I am a proud Black woman. But trying to balance that identity in the context of an interracial marriage is difficult. I’ve been asked before, “Do you guys talk about race all the time?” Yes, but no. We live race all the time. It’s about the life we want to build together, what it looks like and how we get there. We think about what it will be like for him to pick up our future adopted Black daughter at school without me. Will they think he’s trying to steal this kid from aftercare? What might it look like for my white husband to teach our (future) Black teen how to stay safe Driving While Black?  Conversely, I imagine what it might be like for me (maybe one day) to teach our biracial child to be Black and proud, without losing sight of the fact they have a dual identity. How do I myself continue to stay firmly grounded in my Blackness walking alongside my white partner in life? How do I take care of myself?

As I’ve experienced so far, it’s compromise, empathy and understanding. 

I am half-Ghanaian, on my dad’s side. As in other West African countries, jollof rice is a staple dish and a foundational part of their food culture. (There is actually a global Jollof Movement with a dedicated festival. Seriously.) My husband surprised me once with this ode to my heritage. He found an authentic recipe online. He shopped for the ingredients at a local African market (gotta get the legit Maggi seasoning cubes or it doesn’t count). He even molded the rice in a ramekin to get a nice shape for plating. Him cooking for me is special because it’s medium rare-ish. This was a really sweet, heartfelt gesture I will never forget. 

We’ve both tried to weave our culture and family memories together. I was entrusted with the coveted family mac and cheese recipe. After some years, he finally voiced that his grandma’s mac and cheese was baked with breadcrumbs on top, and that he missed that memory of her. Where I’m from in the South, this is sacrilege punishable by permanent expulsion from the Cookout. But…compromise and finding middle ground to respect both of our cherished family traditions is the way forward. (There was a holiday Mac and Cheese Coup…but we shall not speak of it.)

I will end with something that has stuck with me from my other podcast panelist and dear friend Hélène Biandudi Hofer. She is a fellow journalist whose father is from Democratic Republic of the Congo. “What we’ve got is something special. Doesn’t make it easy. It doesn’t mean everyone will accept it. But, what do we care? It’s ours. And it’s sacred.”

Virtual Roundtable!

Come sit with us — live this time.

Join me Wednesday, June 24 at 6pm PT for our first event: A virtual roundtable with the Get Free Guide on the health conversations Black women deserve to have out loud.

The rate of interracial marriage in the United States has steadily increased since it was legalized with Loving v. Virginia in 1967. Fifty years later,* one in six new marriages cross racial or ethnic lines. 

* This is the most recent data available, from Pew Research Center, in 2015.

Meet Kiara: She loved a kind man and still walked away

The only people I have found who can relate to my marriage are other Black women who have, or had, white partners. I spoke with Kiara (a pseudonym to protect hers and her partner’s privacy). I connected with her just days after she ended her relationship. 

Kiara, 32, grew up abroad but has roots in Los Angeles. Today, she lives a bicoastal life between L.A. and NYC working in tech. Our conversation is condensed for length and written in her first person voice. The content has been lightly edited for clarity.

* * *  

I met my ex in London in the summer of 2023, when I was visiting family and just looking for someone to grab a drink with. We matched on a dating app, met at a bar that same night, and what I thought would be a summer fling slowly turned into a real relationship. He’s a white Romanian man. He’s very calm, gentle, and sensitive—nothing like the more dominant, rambunctious men I usually date. I wasn’t looking for something serious, especially not with someone in the U.K. But we stayed in touch after I went back to the U.S., talking and calling every day, and eventually it became a long-distance relationship.

What drew me in was how kind he was. I genuinely think he’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever met: generous to a fault, non-judgmental, and always in my corner. My family saw that too. They came to view him as dependable and trustworthy. I met his family and friends as well. We spent Christmas and New Year’s with them in Romania. I felt like his parents went out of their way to make me feel welcome and safe. On paper, and honestly in many ways in real life, he was a good partner.

But from early on, there were serious fault lines between us around race, culture, and politics that never really went away. He grew up in a very white, homogenous Eastern European environment with almost no exposure to Black people. When he moved to the U.K. he lived in a “rougher” area with more people of color. He had the kind of ignorant, surface-level takes you’d expect from someone who doesn’t understand systemic racism. He made comments like, “Why don’t they just do better?” or “I don’t see color.” We clashed a lot over things like U.S. politics, the 2024 election, and LGBTQ+ issues, especially because I’m progressive and he sits more in the middle. I often felt he wanted to play devil’s advocate instead of really hearing what it really means for me to move through the world as a Black woman.

To his credit, he tried. After some of our early fights, he did “the research.” He listened to podcasts and read in effort to better understand the Black experience. We broke up over these differences, spent about a year apart, and then he came back saying he wanted to try again. This time, he wanted to go to couples therapy and promised to do more intentional work. 

Our sessions focused on race, culture, money, and where we would live. After a few months, though, I realized that core views and comfort levels hadn’t really changed: He still wanted to sometimes “turn off” thinking about race and injustice. But I need a partner whose awareness is “on all the time.”

For me, that was a breaking point. As a Black woman, I don’t get to turn that off. If you’re going to be my husband and the father of my children, you don’t get to either. I need someone whose awareness is on all the time, not because I enjoy the heaviness of it, but because that’s our reality. If actively engaging with that is too draining for you, then I don’t feel safe building a life and raising Black or biracial children with you. That, on top of our differences on issues like politics and LGBTQ+ rights, and what I expect from a provider, made it clear that we weren’t aligned in the ways that matter most to me.

Outside of our private dynamic, there was also the external pressure. Walking around as a Black woman with a white man, I got a lot of looks. In the U.S. specifically, it came a lot of times from Black men and white women. The look that looks up and down, the dirty looks, the just uncomfortable circumstances or situations. Comments from people, a lot of the comments directed at me and not him, “Why are you with the cracker?” And in Romania, looks were from pretty much everyone, since I was often the only Black person around for like a thousand-mile radius. I’ve had comments thrown at me that questioned why I was with a white man, and while he didn’t always see it or fully understand it, I had to carry that weight. Over time, I realized I often felt like I was masculine in this relationship. I was doing the emotional and ideological heavy lifting, explaining, educating, and trying to bridge gaps that felt fundamental.

In the end, after trying again with therapy and seeing the same issues resurface, I decided to end it for good. I can acknowledge that he’s a good, kind person who genuinely cared for me and my family. Still, the relationship wasn’t right for me. I don’t want to start from the ground level with someone on race, culture, and politics ever again. I want a partner who already shares my core values and cultural grounding so that we’re on the same side from the outset. Going forward, I’ve decided to date Black men only, with a real pull toward West African men and my own heritage’s roots. These men aren’t perfect, but I’m done constantly having to explain the basics of who I am and what my life is like.

These are a few things I came across in reading up to write this issue.

A little humor for Juneteenth. Children truly have no filter.