it wasn't until late in our relationship that we were fully honest with each other about the impact of our own subconscious ideas about race on our relationship. we had spoken at length about inequality, gentrification, cultural appropriation, policing, everything structural, but we didn't make it personal until after we'd broken up and gotten back together.
it wasn't until i was crying and admitting that i realized i totally fetishize latino men, and men of color in general, that he told me he had his own distorted views of me - as "better than" the girls in his neighborhood, as a trophy wifey that gave him more status, the "pretty blonde girl," and so on and so on. at this point it was obvious that we loved each other deeply, but that we hadn't considered the internalized desires that might have brought us together initially.
it wasn't until i spoke with another friend, a man of color who used to exclusively date white girls, that i fully understood my own behavior. he told me that he had felt intimidated by spanish women - that he didn't know enough, wasn't "spanish" or "venezuelan" enough, that they were the physical and spiritual reproducers of culture. among white women, he could be the cool, edgy, "urban" boyfriend who never had to prove himself.
in addition, he told me that he realized that he was dating white women to make white men angry. it was then that i realized that i was doing the same thing, on a subconscious level - that i relished the hate i got from white people around me while being in an interracial relationship. it was another way to rebel against the culture i hate so much. and yet, even subconsciously, it is not acceptable to treat another human being as a prop.
i think it speaks to the racial reality of this country that i, as a white person, other everyone who does not look like me. i am "normal," and they are "other than normal." even without value judgments, this sets up others (racially, ethnically, sexually, etc.) to be less than human beings. it's why it's so awkward to see a white person using slang on a black person they've never met - they have no framework to view that person other than through a media portrayal based on nothing. they're treating that person like a character, not a human being.
this is why i do not hate white anti racists. this is why i do this kind of work and try to practice it as well as possible in my life. in a world where we can't see other people as human beings, white people are unlikely to listen to people of color when they point out the structural inequalities that oppress them and support us. is it cowardly, intellectually dishonest, racist? yes. should people of color be getting the accolades that louis ck, tim wise, et. al receive? absolutely. but any step in the right direction will help white people to access writers and activists and thinkers who are people of color and critical of whiteness down the road.
