Ok, so here we are. Why start this blog, why now, what exactly am I looking for? Mostly space and place. For the last two and a half years, I've been in a relationship with a white man. He is plenty of other things, of course, all of them complicated (oh, we'll get to that), but for that last month or so, his race, and mine, have been foremost in my thoughts. My partner belongs to a small, loving family, who have a large network of friends who serve as a kind of extended family. What this often means - especially right now, during the festive season - is that I find myself the only black face in a sea of white faces. This has happened to me before. In fact, I have kind of made a career out of being The Only Black Person At The Party. I've never had a problem with it before. It's not that I claim to 'not see race', or that I've never encountered racism. I have just always had the tools - courtesy of my class identity and maybe, possibly, my identity as a black person living in a foreign country where the majority is black (more on this later, for sure!) - to be in white spaces, and make white people in those spaces entirely comfortable. I am deeply embarrassed and pained and filled with self-loathing at the thought that I only just, at the age of almost-25, almost three years into my relationship, discovered how much I hate that I can facilitate white comfort in those ways.
It began at one of the aforementioned functions, for a daughter of a friend of my partners (it's complicated, it always it). I felt grumpy and ill-tempered most of the afternoon. In hindsight, I can now admit that I was grumpy even before we'd left. The weather was crap, I was underdressed for the weather, overdressed for the function, and irritated at the prospect of not seeing my partner for another god-knows-how-long period. All this, combined with the fact that someone unwittingly served me a foodstuff I am allergic to (I can't tell you what it is, it's too weird an allergy, people can identify me by it), which led to a scene that ended in me running to the bathroom and inducing vomiting (I kid you not), did not a happy SBF make. So it wasn't that there was anything different about the event, or about the sea of white faces in which I found myself immersed once again. I was in a crappy mood, and this allowed me to look at where I was, who I was with, what in the hell I was doing.
In the weeks that followed I started down two dangerous paths: I began Noticing Things and Asking Questions. I noticed, for example, that I was always the only black person around at parties etc., regardless of whether or not my partner was involved. I noticed that at such events, especially where older white people are present (and this one's on my partner), white people rarely talk to me in any great details about myself. I asked why. Why am I the only black person? Why are white people ok with me being the only black person? What is it about me that facilitates their complete comfort in totally white - and wealthy - spaces, where the only other black people are those serving us, cleaning, looking after the dog etc.?
Something like four months later, the questions aren't getting any smaller or easier. In desperation, after one of those gut-wrenching sessions/fights/intense discussions with my partner (oh, people in interracial relationships, you know the ones - I cry/scream/snap, he apologises for something that is not his fault, retreats into his guilt, we make up, forget, until the next event...all of which leaves me wondering if the future of our relationship lies in a life behind locked doors???), I turned to The Interweb. The results have been disappointing. To be fair, I haven't looked all that long, or all that hard. But an initial survey reveals sites of two kinds. Firstly, you'll find reams of heartbreaking stories from men and women whose families are repulsed at the thought of the person they love. They detail their confusion and pain and heartbreak in the face of unrelenting, blatant racism. Secondly, (and I got these sites, when, in tears of frustration, I Google-searched "i am disappearing into my interracial relationship") you'll find sites decrying the scourge of miscegenation and the disappearance of 'pure' races. Neither of these kinds of sites are my story. The latter for obvious reasons, the former because my pain is different. I have not faced outright opposition of the racist kind. But I worry about a different kind of racism. The racism that refuses to recognise me, with my private school accent, my hair extensions, my social ease in a room of white people, as a black person. The racism that refuses to allow my blackness into rooms where I am present so that after a lifetime of living, learning, playing in these rooms, I am no longer clear on what it means to be black. And I am in search of a space to speak of that racism, if I may. I am not offering up a full-proof meditation on blackness, or middle-classness, or interracial relationships. I am rather seeking a place, because I cannot find one in the physical and virtual spaces I currently occupy.
So here we are. I hope this blog connects me to people who have and are experiencing variations of what I am. Or that it attracts halfway decent, non-offensive comments. I'll certainly be watching this space.
